Stubborn Souls
by mistralcat
Summary: George thought she'd have a normal evening collecting a soul, but then her Reap is killed by a werewolf, the soul turns out to be a Slayer, and she finds out vampires are real.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own neither BtVS nor Dead Like Me, and I make no profit on any of this.

Author's Note: This story is AU with regards to both the BtVS comics and the Dead Like Me TV movie. I haven't read the former and haven't seen the latter. Written for scifibigbang over on LJ.

George slid into the booth across from Rube at Der Waffle House and tried to look normal. She couldn't tell from his face if she'd succeeded or not, because she could rarely tell anything from Rube's face, especially when it was really important. Rube didn't say anything, though, so either he knew what she'd done and would blow up at her another time, or he didn't know yet and would blow up at her another time. Either way, she was screwed, but she'd known that already.

Picking up the menu, even though she knew she'd be having oatmeal with raisins like she usually did, George stole a look at Mason and Daisy, who sat next to her and across from her, respectively. They looked completely normal, which, considering what _they'd _done, they really shouldn't. But she'd managed to make their little Ray-graveling problem go away, and they were both the type to put a problem behind them once it was solved. She wished she were that type.

Not that she had a problem. No sirree. Sure, her sister might have seen her on Halloween, the one day of the year when she could see her real face (and, she supposed, the real rest of her body). But maybe Reggie hadn't seen her. Plus, who would believe an eleven-year-old girl, if she started saying she'd seen her dead sister walking around near her grave? No one, that's who. So George had nothing to worry about, and Rube had no reason to blow up at her.

"Where's Kiffany?" she asked, craning her neck to look for the waitress.

"Doing her job," Rube said without looking up from his paper. "An example you would be well-advised to follow."

George put on her best innocent expression. "What'd I do?"

"With you, Peanut, it's always something," Rube said. He gave her one of his patented "I have my eye on you" looks, which she tried to shrug off. He just shook his head at her and then pulled out the book where he kept the post-its. "One for you, one for you, and one for you," he said, putting one down in front of each of them. "And when Roxy gets here -"

"She's here," Roxy said, suddenly appearing beside George. George sometimes wondered if that were an ability Reapers got after a few years - both Roxy and Rube seemed to appear out of nowhere, completely silently, whenever they needed to. But neither Daisy nor Mason seemed to have that ability, so maybe it was something innate in the two of them. Whatever it was, it creeped her out.

"Good," Rube said. He handed her three post-it notes.

"Three?" Roxy said, then added, "Oh. Never mind."

Mason craned over George to see Roxy's post-its, but she held them against her chest so he couldn't.

"C'mon, Roxy," he said, grinning that grin he thought was so charming. "What's going to happen? A multi-car pile-up? A gas-main explosion? Another piano dropped out of a third-floor window? Will you get the souls before the deaths this time?"

Roxy just glared at him, then turned pointedly to Rube. "Is that all?" she asked.

Rube nodded. "That's all," he said.

Roxy gave him a look, put on her cap and headed back outside, not even glancing at George or Daisy. Maybe Roxy knew what she'd done. But which thing did she know about - taking the soul of the Ray-graveling or showing herself to her sister? Since she had ignored Daisy, too, it was probably the former. George allowed herself a sigh of relief and looked back down at her menu.

"Problem, Peanut?" Rube said.

"Yeah, Mason sitting in my lap," George said, then trailed off, looking at her post-it for the first time since Rube had given it to her. "Yeah," she said again, meaning it this time. "Carkeek Park? At ten o'clock at night? Are you crazy?"

"Not even remotely," Rube said. "Excuse me, Daisy," he added, and slid out of the booth when Daisy moved. George looked up at him as he passed her, hoping he'd change his mind, but she wasn't surprised when he didn't. "Take Mason," he said over his shoulder. "Or better yet, take Roxy."

"Hey!" Mason said.

"You know, Georgia, it's not as though you could get mugged and killed," Daisy said, leaning forward to look at George's post-it.

"Bite me," George said.

George heard pounding footsteps behind her and spun around, prepared for the worst. Instead of the muggers she'd been expecting, she saw a girl about her age almost flying down the path, with someone behind her running almost as fast. The bright moonlight let her see the name on the girl's varsity jacket, so as they raced by, she reached out and took her soul. She wanted to do more - she wanted to reach out her foot and trip the girl's pursuer - but she knew she couldn't. So she just did her job; she took the soul, and at least the girl wouldn't feel her final moments, however horrible they would be.

She was so focused on not tripping the girl's pursuer that she didn't register what it was until it was already past them.

"Holy fuck, that was a werewolf," she said. She turned towards Mason, who was staring after the running pair. "Holy fuck. What will happen when he's done with her - will he come after us?"

"We're dead, Georgie," Mason said. "Not much good to a werewolf."

George shrugged. "Good point."

"Holy fuck, that was a werewolf," Mason said, suddenly sagging.

George rolled her eyes and started off after her Reap, letting one part of Mason's brain catch up to the rest of it, but before she got too far, she heard several more sets of footsteps thundering behind her. She stopped and looked around, just in time to dodge another woman also practically flying down the path, a big guy on her heels. He clearly wasn't trying to hurt her, but George had no idea what was going on in the park that night. Yet another girl ran up to them, then stopped, hands on her knees, gasping for breath.

"What the fuck is going on?" Mason said, saving George the trouble.

"No...nothing you need to worry about," the girl said through big gulps of air. "It's all going to be okay."  
"Well, no," George said. "It's not." But, of course, this girl couldn't know that. She was about to go on, to try to come up with some explanation, but when she took a closer look at the girl, she realized that she wasn't one, not quite. Or not entirely. George squinted at her, trying to understand what she was seeing.

"What the fuck is going on?" Mason said again. "Where the fuck is everyone running to? And why are you a fucking big ball of fucking green light?"

The girl stared at him. George could see that, could see her face with a shocked expression on it, but she could also see what Mason meant. If she looked at the girl one way, she was a girl; if she looked at her another, she was a ball of glowing green light. It wasn't a sickly green - it looked friendly and healthy - but it was a fucking big ball of fucking green light.

"You can see that?" the girl said. "But you don't look crazy." She eyed Mason. "Much. How can you see that?"

"How can you be a ball of fucking green light?" Mason asked. He wasn't squinting; his eyes were wide open, but the difference in the ways of looking wasn't physical. George wasn't sure what it was; more a way of thinking, maybe.

The girl sighed. "It's a long, long story," she said. "I'm Dawn, by the way."

"Mason," Mason said. "And this is George."

"Mason," George said, whacking him in the arm. He was the one who was always reminding her not to introduce herself as George. Then, she remembered something. "Shit, my Reap," she said and took off down the path. Who knew what Mason would get up to with Dawn the Big Ball of Glowing Green Light, but she had a job to do.

She didn't have far to go, actually, but she found more than she expected. The second pair of people who'd raced by her were just standing there, but there were two bodies on the ground - the girl's and the werewolf's. For a crazy moment, she wondered if she'd taken the wrong soul, but she knew she hadn't. Plus, on closer inspection, the werewolf was still breathing. She squeaked, and the two people still standing turned and looked at her. The woman turned right back to contemplating the bodies on the ground, but the big guy smiled at her.

"This isn't what it looks like," he said.

"Really? So that's not a fucking werewolf?" George said. "And that's not a dead girl? And the werewolf isn't still alive? Bullshit."

"You're not going to explain this one away, Xand," the young woman said.

Xand - what kind of name was that? - made a face. "Guess Sunnydale denial isn't alive and well in Seattle," he said. He smiled at George again. "You see, miss, there are more things in this world of ours than you realize."

"No shit, Sherlock," George said. "For one thing, where's my Reap? I took her soul, and she's dead, so she should be here. Where is she?" She knew she shouldn't be saying these things to these people, who weren't Reapers or Reaps, though there was something odd about this woman, too, but she didn't really care at this point. She'd just found out that werewolves existed; she didn't think even Rube would blame her for blabbing a little. Well, maybe he would, but she didn't care.

Xand looked confused. "What's a Reap?" he asked.

George rolled her eyes. "I'm a Grim Reaper; I take souls just before they die...yadda, yadda, yadda. The point is, she's disappeared, and my boss is going to go apeshit."  
"Good to know some things are always the same," Xand said. "Giles is going to go apeshit, too."

"Yeah," the young woman said. She looked sadly down at the girl's body on the ground. "This is the third one, Xand," she said. "The third one we got to too late. All killed by werewolves. It's got to be a pattern."

"And we'll find out why, Faith," Xand said. "But we can't do anything until the moon goes down, and he turns human again. Right now, this young lady's problem seems to be more pressing."

Faith gave him a long look under her eyelashes, but then turned to George.

"Let me get this straight," she said. "You're the Grim Reaper, and you're worried about losing a single soul? Out of the billions in the world?"

"_A_ Grim Reaper," George said. "And billions aren't my problem. This one is." She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Mason and Dawn approaching. "Mason, my Reap has disappeared."

"Fuck," Mason said. "You certain you took the soul?"

George rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mason, I'm sure I took the soul. She should be here."

"When?" Xand said. "I mean, you weren't here when she died."

George glared at him. "I wouldn't wait until she died - that would be cruel. I took it when she ran past me back there." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder.

"So you took her soul out of her body before she died?" Xand said.

"I just said that," George said, and Faith gave a snort of laughter.

Xand glared at her. "So, her soul's now out of her body, wandering around somewhere? Does she know she's dead?"

George and Mason looked at each other.

"They usually know it, deep down, but they often have to be...reminded," George said.

"Have it beaten into their thick skulls, more like," Mason said. For some reason, that made Dawn smile at him.  
"So, we have a Slayer out there, who should know she's dead, but probably doesn't want to believe it," Xand said. "Does anyone else see the problem with this picture?"

"Fuck," Faith said. "She could be anywhere, doing anything."

"Well, not really," Mason said. "She can't touch anything, for one thing."

"Why does her being a Slayer make any difference?" George said. "I've never had this happen before. And, oh, yeah - what the fuck's a Slayer?"

Now Xand and Faith exchanged looks.

"A Slayer's a girl who kills the things that go bump in the night," Xand said.

"Woman," Faith said, and Xand shot a grin at her.

"Like werewolves," George said.

"Werewolves, vampires, demons," Dawn said. "Also, weird cyborg-type things and hell-gods. Occasionally, even Xander's dates."

George supposed 'Xander' made more sense as a name than 'Xand' did.

"Though we don't actually kill werewolves," Faith said. "They're human most of the time and not responsible for what they do when they're wolfed out. And we don't kill humans."

"Good to know," Mason said.

"Wait," George said, "if Slayers kill - or don't kill - werewolves, why was this Slayer running from one?"

Xander and Faith exchanged looks again. "She didn't know she was a Slayer," Faith said. "We didn't get to her in time."

"Okay," George said. "None of this means a rat's ass, anyway. All Rube is going to care about is that I lost my Reap. Fuck. I'm going to be in so much trouble."  
"Maybe we can help," Dawn said. Xander and Faith turned to look at her, and she smiled at them. "We can at least explain that it was because she was a Slayer that she disappeared. And what a Slayer is."

"I bet Rube knows," George said. "He knows everything."

"Or he wants us to think he does," Mason said. "I'd give anything to see his face when he's truly stumped."

"Maybe you'll get your chance," Dawn said. She turned beseeching eyes upon Xander and Faith, and even in the moonlight, George could see that they were very beseeching eyes.

Xander sighed, but Faith laughed. "Someday, you won't be the cute little sister anymore," she said.

Dawn looked hurt. "I'll always be the little sister," she said.

Faith laughed again, but didn't answer her. "If we're going to explain to...what's your name, anyway?"

"George," George said, with a glare at Mason.

"Wicked," Faith said. "If we're going to tell all to George's boss, we'd better get going. This guy" - she nudged the sleeping body of the werewolf with her foot - "will sleep for awhile, but we should get him back to headquarters before he wakes up. And -"

She stopped talking and was gone so abruptly, George thought something was wrong with her eyes. Then she realized that several men had appeared out from under the trees, and Faith was fighting them. Or dancing with them; it wasn't quite clear. Even in the moonlight, George could see that their faces were ugly and ridged, that their eyes were almost glowing yellow, and that they had fangs.

"Vampires?" Mason said. "Bloody hell."


	2. Chapter 2

Dawn rested her head against the window and watched the streets of Seattle flash by. She was feeling more than a little freaked out, though she was trying to stay calm, since she knew there were more important things happening than her ongoing existential problems. All the same, it was all she could do not to brood worse than Angel ever had about Mason and George, trying to see what made them able to tell she was the Key.

Not that they'd called her that, so she suspected they didn't know exactly what she was. But they knew she wasn't a normal girl, and that was bad enough. She also knew that they were taking them to someone who might know the answers to her questions...she just wasn't sure she wanted to ask.

She needed to talk to Xander. Faith, too, if that was unavoidable, but she still didn't feel quite comfortable with Faith. If she was being honest with herself, and she did try to do that, she had to admit that she was intimidated by Faith. She suspected that was why Buffy had sent her here - her sister had insisted that she spend some time with an active Slayer and Watcher combination in the field before making her final decision to attend the newly reformulated Watcher's Academy, and she'd almost pushed her into choosing Seattle as the place to visit. Dawn hadn't complained, because Seattle meant Xander, but she had a feeling Buffy had been thinking more about Faith.

And Dawn could see what Buffy meant. Xander had almost no control over Faith, at least not when he tried to control her. It was when he worked with her that they got the most done. Dawn wasn't sure if that was the lesson Buffy had wanted her to learn or not, but she thought it was a good one. And they were both freaked over these werewolf attacks, so Dawn was able to see a top Slayer/Watcher team at work in a crisis, which made her more convinced than ever that this was what she wanted to do with her life.

Unless her life wasn't her own, and if random people were seeing her as a ball of green light, it might not be.

"What's up, Dawnie?" Xander said. "That's some mighty big sighing you've got going there."

Dawn looked away from the window to see him turned around and looking at her. Faith was still muttering away as she drove, even though they'd stopped at two cemetaries so she could get her Slay on. Dawn knew that Faith didn't really consider killing fledglings Slaying, but one of the fledges had a welcoming committee of older vamps, so she'd hoped that would be enough. It certainly didn't seem like it had, but Xander was ignoring Faith's ongoing commentary, so she tried to, too. George and Mason were up ahead in George's car, and Faith didn't seem to like George's driving any more than Dawn liked Faith's. Xander looked slightly green around the gills, so Dawn suspected he felt the same way she did. He could probably use a distraction, and she could provide.

"George and Mason could see me," she said.

"Uh, huh," Xander said. "Did you turn invisible when I wasn't watching again? I've told you and told you -"

"No," Dawn said, understanding what he was trying to do, but not really in the mood for jokes right now. "I mean, they saw me as the Key."

Xander blinked, and Faith looked at her in the rearview mirror.

"Funny," Xander said. "They didn't seem insane. Well, maybe Mason..." He was obviously thinking hard.

"They're not normal," Faith said, then, "Shit!" as George cut across two lanes of traffic and exited the highway. "She's sure as fuck not normal," she added as she followed, flipping off the car behind her when the driver honked.

Xander gulped, but then said, "She's right, Dawn. Maybe Grip Reapers can see you just because of what they are. Whatever that is, and believe me, Giles is going to be getting a phone call. Can you believe we've never heard of these guys before?"

"I know," Dawn said. "I suppose I'm not too surprised...it's just...I thought I was just a normal girl now, you know? I thought me being the Key had gone away once Glory was gone."

"Why would it go away?" Faith asked.

Dawn shrugged, even though Faith wouldn't be able to see it. "I'm not saying it was logical, but that's what I thought. Nothing had happened from then until now, and with all the craziness we've got going around us, you'd think it would." She sighed again. "I guess it has."

"We still don't know if it has," Xander said. "And Faith's right - there's no reason to suppose that you'd stop being the Key just because Glory is gone. The Key existed long before you were...before the monks created the Dawn we know. So it makes sense it still exists. But Dawn still exists, too. Nothing's changed, Dawnie."

"I know," Dawn said. "I know, I know. I'm just having an existential crisis. I'll get over it."

"No one is more entitled to an existential crisis," Xander said, reaching back and patting her hand.

"And just think," Faith said. "It could be so much worse. You could be a Grim Reaper and have to take souls all the time. And drive like a fucking maniac."

"Wouldn't want that," Dawn said.

* * *

"You okay, Mason?" George asked. They'd been driving for several minutes, and Mason hadn't said anything, which had her worried.

"That shit was fucking insane," Mason said.

"Oh-kay," George said, taking quick glances at him as she drove. "Which shit, exactly?"

"She fucking stabbed him in the chest, and he fucking disappeared in a fucking puff of smoke," Mason said.

"That's the weirdest thing?" George said. "After seeing me take a graveling's soul, seeing a vampire turn into dust is what's made you incoherent?" Not that he was really any more incoherent than normal.

"Gravelings I know," Mason said. "Vampires, werewolves, Slayers...and whatever that bloody green thing is that's walking and talking like a pretty girl...Rube sure as shit better be able to explain all this."

George sighed. "I just want to know where my Reap is. I'm not used to screwing up by accident. I like to mean it when I screw up." She suddenly realized that she'd almost missed the exit and swerved over two lanes of traffic.

"Fuck!" Mason said, bracing himself against the dashboard.

"Sorry," George said. "You didn't think it was cool, though?"

"Almost being thrown out of the bloody car?" Mason said. "Not so much."

"No, dumbass," George said. "The way Faith fought those vampires - I mean, she took on four at once and at the end, they were all dust and she was still standing. That's pretty fucking cool."

"I suppose," Mason said. "She's a little scary, though, isn't she?"

George pulled into a parking space in front of Der Waffle House, then took a deep breath. "Not as scary as Rube," she said. "You'll back me up, right? I didn't do anything wrong this time."

Mason laughed. "Yeah, I'll back you up, for what it's worth. Rube never fucking believes me, anyway."

"Point," George muttered and got out of the car. She reassessed her scariness meter when she saw Faith approaching. She had no idea why the Slayer was so angry with her, but what she saw in her face made her duck quickly into the restaurant, looking for Rube. He was sitting in a booth in the corner - not their usual one - hunched over a cup of coffee.

"This had better be good, Peanut," he said as she approached. "Though I must say I'm impressed that you're asking for help."

George slid into the booth across from him. She knew she wasn't going to be able to hide anything from him this time, so she decided not to try. "I don't know what happened," she said. "And there are these weird people..." She trailed off and waved a hand at Faith, Xander, and Dawn, who were walking towards them. Mason trailed behind them, trying to look like he wasn't even there. That never worked with Rube, but Mason still always tried.

Rube looked up, said, "Huh," when he saw Faith, and then, "Huh," again when he saw Dawn. The second one sounded a lot more surprised than the first. He gave an odd little nod toward Faith and said, "Slayer."

"Yeah," Faith said. She slid into the booth next to George, making George budge over. Dawn plopped down next to Rube, flinching when he did. Xander looked around, then shrugged and sat down next to Faith.

"Don't mind me," George said. Xander grinned around Faith at her.

"We never do, Peanut," Rube said. "So, what did you do this time, and what does a Slayer have to do with it?" He was completely ignoring Dawn, though George wasn't sure the glowing green girl could tell. She hoped not.

"I didn't do anything," George said without thinking about it. "Well, I mean, I did everything right."

Rube sighed.

"No, really. Mason and I went down to Carkeek Park, and when my Reap went running by me, I took her soul. But..."

Rube raised his eyebrows at her, and George gulped.

"But the thing that was chasing her was a werewolf. I swear, Rube! A fucking werewolf. And then when I got to where she actually died, she was nowhere around. I mean, her body was there, but her soul wasn't. And Faith thinks she knows why. Why the fuck have you never told us about Slayers?"

Rube had looked down at his coffee cup midway through her story, but he looked up at her at that. He didn't say anything, just looked at her, and George swallowed her anger at being left out of the loop. Rube was Rube; he wouldn't tell her the sky was blue if she couldn't see it for herself. After he stared at George for a few moments, Rube turned to Faith, who shrugged.

"George said that sometimes the souls don't realize they're dead right away and need to be reminded," she said, somehow making it sound like she talked about dead people and souls all the time. "Sure as shit, there's no one more stubborn than a Slayer. If anyone would need to be dragged kicking and screaming towards realizing they're dead, it would be one of us."

"She's not wrong," Xander said. "And sometimes they don't even stay dead." Dawn giggled.

"This one damn well better stay dead," George said. "That's my Reap."

Rube took a deep breath. "All right," he said. "Obviously, someone seriously fucked up, and it wasn't even you this time, George. I need to consult with a colleague, but he's busy in the evenings, so it might take awhile. Everyone go home and get some sleep." He looked like he wanted to stand up, but didn't want to look at Dawn.

"But what about my Reap?" George said. "She's still out there, and I need to find her."

"Huh," Rube said, giving her a look she'd never seen on him before, and she didn't know what it meant. "I suppose..."

"We might be able to help," Xander said. Faith looked at him, but he just smiled at her. "We could stand to find her, too...we didn't think we'd be able to ask her any questions, since we got to her too late. But you can talk to the souls, can't you?" At Rube's nod, he went on, "So, if we help George find our Slayer, she can ask her our questions, and everyone benefits."

"Except Lauren," Dawn said, looking sad.

"She might get some revenge for her death," Faith said. "And that's not nothing.

* * *

For some reason, Faith insisted on George riding with them back to their place, so she ended up in the back of an SUV, one seatback away from a tied-up, snoring werewolf. Dawn sat next to her, not even seeming to notice the werewolf, so George pretended not to be freaked out, too. It was hard, though, so she was glad when they reached a row of houses where Faith pulled into a garage. Xander turned around to smile at her.

"Welcome to Slayer Central, Seattle branch," he said.

"Slayer Central?" George said, but then what seemed like a gaggle of girls tumbled out of the door leading to the house, all talking at once. It was really only four girls, but they talked so much and moved so fast, it was only once they were all inside, the werewolf securely chained to a chair and the rest of them sitting on couches, chairs, or the floor of the living room, that she realized it. And seriously, who has that many chains just lying about? Two of the girls were about her age, or what her age would have been if she hadn't died. The other two were younger, maybe about fifteen. They all were sitting, eyes turned attentively towards Xander, but they still looked like they were about to leap up and run laps around the building or something. It was fucking weird.

"Everybody," Xander said. "This is George. She's something called a Grim Reaper."

George put her hand up to stop him from telling these young girls everything, but when he looked at her, she waved him off. They weren't normal, either, these Slayers, and Rube hadn't seemed to mind Faith knowing about them. Besides, she needed these people's help, and how could they help her find her missing Reap if they didn't know what one was?

"Grim Reapers collect people's souls before they die," Xander said. "George's most recent soul to be collected was the Slayer we were trying to save tonight."

"So -" said one of the older Slayers, a redhead.

"So, what, Bree?" Xander said, smiling at her.

"So, there wasn't anything we could have done to save her," Bree said. "She was fated to die."

"Don't believe in fate," Faith almost growled.

"It's not really fate," George said. "It's...it's just that...something knows when everyone's going to die."

"How is that not fate?" Bree said.

"It's just not, okay?" George said.

"And it's not important right now," Xander said. "The point is, sometimes souls that have been taken don't realize they're dead. And who do we know who is more stubborn than anyone about not admitting they're defeated?"

"Hey!" all of the young Slayers said.

"That's right," Xander said, grinning at them. "Slayers. So, George has lost her soul -"

"My Reap," George said. "My soul's right here."

"Right," Xander said. "She's lost her Reap, and we're going to help her find it. Her. Lauren. As a bonus, when we find her, George will be able to ask her some questions that we need answered. Now, does anyone have any ideas as to how we can find her?"

"You said that souls sometimes don't realize they're dead," the other Slayer George's age said. At first, George thought it was Dawn who spoke, but it was just that this Slayer also had long brown hair. Dawn was sitting on the floor against the wall, and she was actually taking notes on everything that was said. These people were really strange. "What happens then?" the brown-haired Slayer said.

George tore her eyes away from Dawn's weirdness and said, "It seems to be different every time. Daisy had one follow her around for awhile, and I had one who wouldn't leave until she knew her money was going to be taken care of. Sometimes they go home, but I don't know where this Lauren lived."

"We can help you with that," Xander said.

"But she's a Slayer," one of the younger Slayers said, sitting up straight and glaring at George for some reason. "Wouldn't she try to fight back?"

"Remember that she doesn't know she's a Slayer, Liz," Xander said. "She probably didn't even realize she was running faster than she should have been, or that she could have fought back."

"And she can't touch anything now," George said. "It's got to be scary for her."

"Slayers don't get scared," Liz said.

"Yeah, we do," Faith said. "Don't mistake courage for not having any fear. The one is good, the other...isn't."

"Speaking of scared," George said, "you don't think any more werewolves will be hanging around Lauren's house, do you?"

Faith and Xander exchanged a look, then Xander shrugged.

"I wouldn't think so," he said, though he didn't sound too sure. "Werewolves don't tend to think too much when they're transformed - it's more just kill, kill, kill. They don't usually care who. Lauren was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Plus, a werewolf wouldn't bite you, would it?" Faith said. "I mean..."

"Yeah, I don't know," George said. "But it's not something I really want to test out."

"It ran right by you and Mason earlier," Dawn said, looking up from her notebook.

"Well, yeah," George said. "But it was already chasing Lauren, so why would it give up and go for us?"

"Actually, it usually would," Faith said. "You were just standing there, much easier prey...huh. I wonder..."

"Still not a risk I want to run," George said.

"Understandable," Xander said. "We'll send -"

He stopped, because there was a knock on the front door. George wasn't quite sure how she could tell, because none of them moved, but it felt like everyone on the room was suddenly on high alert. Faith uncurled herself from her seat in a cushy armchair and opened the door. A short guy with blond hair tinged with blue stood on the doorstep.

"Faith," he said. "Hey."

Faith stood aside to let him enter without saying anything. George didn't know what that was about, but maybe they had a history. Once the guy was inside, he was hit by a Dawn-shaped missile, though she almost smothered him, she was so much taller than he was.

"Oz!"


	3. Chapter 3

"So, what's with this Oz dude?" George asked as she, Bree, and Liz headed to her Reap's house.

Bree, who was driving, shrugged. "We know as much as you do. He's a friend from when the Scoobies were in Sunnydale."

"Scoobies?" George said. "Sunnydale?"

The explanation Bree and Liz gave her just left her more confused.

"Okay, so he's an old friend," she said when they were done. "Why did Dawn launch herself at him? That was more than just glad to see an old friend."

"No, that's just Dawn," Liz said. "When she first got here, she followed Xander around like a puppy. Actually, she's still doing that."

"She's not that bad," Bree said. "Besides, she wants to be a Watcher, so she's trying to pick up tips. Xander's the best Watcher I've ever had."

"How many have you had?" George asked.

Bree didn't look at her. "Two," she said.

Somehow, George didn't feel comfortable asking any more about this weird group of people after that. The three girls were quiet for a little while, but after a few minutes, Liz started chattering about something that had happened at school that day. Bree seemed amused by her, but she asked the right questions and made the right comments. By the time they got to Lauren's house, George's awkward feeling was mostly gone. As soon as Bree stopped the car, Liz opened her door and jumped out, striding purposefully up the driveway. Bree put her head down on the steering wheel and bounced it up and down a few times.

"Well, Lauren knows we're here now," she said. "I just hope she realizes we're the good guys."

"I don't know what Liz is planning to do," George said, opening the SUV's door and climbing down. "She won't be able to see Lauren, anyway."

Bree laughed. "That's Liz," she said. "Jump first, examine consequences later."

"I heard that," Liz said, appearing out of the bushes behind her suddenly. George put a hand to her chest to try to calm her pounding heart.

"You were meant to," Bree said. She'd come around to George's side of the SUV and now opened up the back door and pulled out three large guns. She checked each one – to make sure it was loaded, George thought – and then held out two of them to Liz and George. George took one, but squinted at it.

"I'm not really a gun person," she said.

"It's perfectly simple," Bree said. "Just point and shoot. Besides, this shoots tranquilizer darts, not bullets, so don't worry. If you see a werewolf, make sure you shoot first."

"But there's enough tranquilizer in these darts to down a werewolf or a bull elephant," Liz said, and George could see her grinning in the moonlight. "Or a Slayer. So try not to shoot a normal person, or they really won't be waking up for awhile."

"I'll keep that in mind," George said, holding the tranquilizer gun a little away from her body. She had no idea what the darts would do to a Reaper, after all.

Bree led the way up the driveway, George following and Liz behind her. George wished it had been the other way around, because she didn't trust Liz not to pull some joke on her with the tranquilizer gun, but she forgot her worries when she saw her Reap sitting on the front stoop. Lauren was huddled into herself, forehead on her knees. George patted Bree on the shoulder, then walked past her to sit on the stoop next to her Reap.

"Hello, Lauren," she said.

Lauren's head snapped up, and she stared at George, wide-eyed and breathing hard.

"Yes, I can see you," George said. "They can't," she added, waving a hand at the two Slayers, who had turned their backs on the stoop to watch out into the night. "But I can."

"You can?" Lauren said. "You can! But...but I think..." She stopped, gulped, and went on in a whisper. "I think I might be dead. I think I'm a ghost."

"Well, not technically a ghost," George said. "But you are dead. I gotta say, I'm relieved that you realize it."

"No one can see me, and I can't touch anything," Lauren said. She held her hands out in front of herself and studied them. "Julia didn't see me when I was standing right in front of her. Either I've been thrown slightly out of phase with normal matter, or I'm dead, but I don't see the Enterprise around, so I don't think it's the first one."

"No," George said, wondering what Star Trek had to do with anything. "No, you're dead. A werewolf killed you."

"A what?"  
"Yeah, werewolves are real," George said. "I just learned it myself, and let me tell you, it's been a truly shitty night. But what's important is that you're dead, and you need to move on."

"Move on? You mean, like, to Heaven?"

"I don't know," George said, wishing that Reaps were a little more original. She'd given this speech more times than she wanted to count. "I'm a Grim Reaper, and it's my job to remove your soul from your body before you die and then help you move on. I don't know where you're going, because I've never been there. I'm stuck here, doing my fucking job." She stopped and took a breath. This night must be bothering her even more than she'd thought; she was usually more polite with the Reaps. "Sorry."

Lauren didn't seem to notice. In fact, she was staring out into the darkness, and George watched as her eyes got wider and wider.

"You said werewolves are real?"  
George whipped her head around to look out past the two Slayers on guard. She couldn't see a thing, but both Bree and Liz had raised their tranquilizer guns.

"Yeah," she said, standing up and taking a few steps back until her back was against the front door of Lauren's house. Lauren followed suit. "Yeah, werewolves are real. And I'm guessing there's one out there somewhere."

"If they look like really big, hairy, ugly...things, then there's three," Lauren said.

"Three?" George said, appalled at how her voice squeaked. She raised her tranq gun, feeling her hands shake. Three meant she might have to fire it.

"Incoming," yelled Bree, and then everything was fur and snarling and shrieking. The shrieking, George was ashamed to admit, was her own. It didn't last long, but long enough for her. At the end, there were five werewolves laid out on the ground in front of Bree and Liz, and one sprawled on the front steps. George looked down at her tranq gun and realized that she'd managed to fire it after all. She looked at Lauren, who was standing over the werewolf, fists clenched at her sides.

"There were more than three," George said.

"I couldn't do anything," Lauren said through clenched teeth. "I feel…I feel…"

She couldn't seem to finish her thought, but Bree, who was walking over to them just then, must have seen George looking concerned.  
"Does Lauren feel odd?" she asked. "Like her whole skin is itching, and she could jump over her house with one jump?" George nodded. "That's because she's a Slayer and she didn't get a kill. Good shooting," she added to George.

"You didn't kill anything either," Lauren said.

"You're not wrong," Bree said when George repeated it to her, then shrugged. "Once we take these guys back to the house, Liz and I will head out hunting. That'll take the edge off."

Lauren rubbed her arms. "That won't work for me," she said.

"Well," George said, carefully handing her tranq gun to Bree, "You really are supposed to move on, anyway. Do you see any bright lights calling to you?"  
Lauren looked at her like she thought she was crazy.

"I can't move on yet," she said. "Werewolves just showed up at my house. It's just luck that my parents are away for the weekend. They'll be back day after tomorrow, and I need to make sure they're safe."

George rolled her eyes and then told Bree what Lauren had said.

"They should be safe," Bree said. "These werewolves were after you, not them."

"How do you know?" Lauren and George said at the same time.

"Because they attacked Slayers last month, too," Liz said, appearing out of the darkness in front of them and shaking her head at Bree, who gave a little sigh. "We've all been jumped on patrols, and three other Slayers were killed before we could find them and tell them what they are."

"Is that normal?" George asked. "Didn't Faith say that werewolves just go after the easiest targets? I wouldn't think Slayers would be easy targets."

Bree shook her head. "It's most definitely not normal," she said. "The problem is, we have no idea why they're doing it."

Dawn bustled around getting everyone drinks while Xander showed Oz where he'd sleep and where the bathroom was, trying to forget what an idiot she'd made of herself. She wasn't quite sure why she'd thrown herself at Oz that way, except that he was a werewolf and their current problem involved werewolves. And it was good to see him, anyway - Willow had gotten back in touch with him after Sunnydale, and emails and information had trickled down to the rest of them, but none of them saw him very often. And part of it was that Oz did remember her, and every person who did, especially ones who weren't actually in Sunnydale at the time of her true first days as a human, made her feel a little bit more real. She'd never told Buffy, but that was why she'd made the effort to keep in touch with their dad - it certainly wasn't because he acted like he cared about her when she did call.

Dawn still felt embarrassed about earlier, though Faith's nonchalance was helping. She was sitting at the kitchen island, sipping the tea Dawn had brewed and leafing through a magazine as though nothing had happened. Maybe Xander and Oz would act like nothing had happened, too.

"And this is the kitchen," Xander said, leading Oz through the door from the dining room. "And now that you've gotten the whole tour, please tell me you're here to help us with our werewolf problem."

Oz nodded and took a seat next to Faith, who put down her magazine and looked hopeful.

"I've heard rumors," Oz said, looking down at his hands, clasped on the countertop. "The werewolves I've been visiting with say to stay away from Seattle."

"Away?" Xander said. He'd come around to stand next to Dawn, leaning back against the sink. "But we have so many here - they have to come from somewhere."

Oz gave a small shake of his head. "The ones who are here are manmade."

"What does that mean?" Dawn asked. "Aren't all werewolves…" She trailed off, not sure how to finish her question.

"You mean someone's making werewolves on purpose?" Faith said. She looked furious.

Oz nodded. "There have always been werewolves who enjoy being a werewolf, and some even try to bite other people so they're not alone. Btu for the most part, when a werewolf is…wolfy, it's too hard to think about anything in your human life. In fact, it's usually impossible."

"But not always," Xander said.

Oz shook his head.

"How likely is it that this many werewolves can remember who to attack when they're wolfy?" Faith asked. "The one who jumped me last month passed Xander completely, came straight for me, and ran off once it was clear he wasn't going to take me." She looked down at her hands. "I was so shocked, I just stood there, and by the time I chased him, he got away."

"You weren't the only one," Xander said.

"Not just unlikely," Oz said. "Impossible."

"Hence, manmade werewolves," Dawn said.

Oz nodded, then shook his head. "It's more than that. It would take powerful magic to get most werewolves to still think like their human selves."

"Willow-powerful?" Xander asked.

Oz shrugged. "I've never heard of anything like this before. I can ask around."

"Or we can just get Willow here," Faith said.

"Do we really need her?" Dawn said. "She's got her hands fulol with a new demon gang down in Rio, and we don't really need to know how they did it, do we? All we need to know is that they did."

"Good point, Dawnie," Xander said. "But I'll call tomorrow - today," he added with a glance at the clock. "She might have an idea how powerful a witch would be needed to do something like this, and I don't want to go up against someone of her level with no warning."

Dawn wished she had her notebook so she could write that down, but she'd left it in the living room.

"So, what we have here is someone creating werewolves and sending them against Slayers," Xander said. "Even Slayers who don't know they're Slayers yet."  
"Are there many of those Slayers?" Oz asked.

Both Xander and Faith made faces. "More than there should be," Xander said. "Willow and the Coven gave us a list for the whole Pacific Northwest, and it seems like there are more in the area than other places. And as far as we can tell, the Bringers didn't find any Potentials in this area."

"Also pointing to a strong witch in the area," Faith said.

Xander sighed. "I'll make that call to Willow now, even though I'll probably wake her up." Then, he grinned. "And Dawn can attack her in the doorway, too."


	4. Chapter 4

When George announced that she had to go to the work the next day, she got resistance from two sources - Xander and, surprisingly, Lauren. Xander just seemed worried that she hadn't had any sleep, since by the time she, Bree, and Liz had wrestled the tranqed werewolves into the SUV, had driven back to the house, and wrestled them into the basement where Faith chained them up, there was no point in even trying to get any sleep. George explained to him that Reapers need less sleep than normal people, and he seemed to accept that.

"But can't you call in sick, or take a personal day?" he asked. "Seems like if ever there's a time…"

"There's always a time when you're a Reaper," George said. "I don't have any sick days or personal days left for the year."

Faith laughed. "Sounds like being a Slayer."

Xander frowned. "Except you ladies don't have to work in addition to being the Slayer. This is like when Buffy had to work at the Doublemeat Palace."

"Oh, no," George said. "Happy Time is bad, but not that bad. I do have to get going, though. I still have to stop off at home and get dressed for work, and then I have to pick up today's post-it from Rube."

"You have to do that today?" Dawn asked. The rest of the Slayers had headed off to bed, but she'd stuck around, and she had her notebook with her again, which made George nervous. "I mean, you still have Lauren, and it's not your fault."

George shrugged. "Rube might not give me a post-in, but he'll be pissed off if I'm not there to get one," she said. "Lauren, are you staying, or coming with me?"

"Coming with you," Lauren said. She had her hands clenched at her sides. "It's really annoying. I want to stay here and help with the Slaying, but I feel this compulsion to go with you. Why can't you stay here?"  
"Did you not listen to what I just said?" George said. She didn't have time for this.

"Lauren wants to stay, right?" Xander said, and when George nodded, said, "It's all right, Lauren. We're all headed to bed, anyway. And we'll see you at the meeting this evening with Rube and whatever expert he's bringing in. Do you know who it is?" he asked George.

"No idea," she said, and finally got away.

Luckily, Rube didn't have a post-it for her.

"You have enough on your plate, Peanut," he said, and he didn't even look at Lauren, sulking in a booth over by the windows, when he said it. Daisy pouted when she got two post-its, but Rube just threatened her with coming to the meeting that evening, and she left in a hurry. Mason followed her, and Roxy had already come and gone. George was running late, but she couldn't help but ask Rube who this expert was.

"He's a Reaper in another division," Rube said.

"Like the Plague Division?"

Rube nodded. "This is the Supernatural Division. They're the busiest at night, which was why I knew I wouldn't be able to get in touch with him yesterday. I want to know why you got a post-it that was obviously meant for his division."  
"Will he know?" George asked. "I mean, you don't."

Rube glared at her and got up to leave. "Let's hope he does," he said over his shoulder as he walked away.

Work was its usual annoying self that day, with the added aggravation to Lauren tagging along everywhere she went, complaining constantly about not being able to touch anything. And how her parents were getting home today and they'd better be okay. And how she couldn't eat anything. (George asked her if she was hungry, and she said no, just bored.) And how she really wanted to get out of there and slay something.

To make matters worse, Dolores spent half an hour in George's cubicle, telling her about Murphy's latest urinary tract infection…exactly where he'd been peeing in her apartment, what the vet had said, how much Murphy hated the antibiotics, and exactly what Dolores would have to do to collect a urine sample after the antibiotics were done. Any other day, that would just have been part of the background noise of George's unlife, but add in a bored Slayer who kept making faces that only George could see behind Dolores, and it was one of the worst days that she could remember having at Happy Time. She had never wanted to meet with Rube so badly, and she didn't even stop to change her clothes before leading Lauren to Der Waffle Haus.

Rube was there already, along with another man George didn't recognize. He had a nasty scar that went all the way across his throat, but that couldn't have been what killed him, because then he wouldn't have had it. George would bet that there was an interesting story there, but she wasn't about to ask it. The man was scruffy, sexy as hell, and so hard and dangerous looking that George didn't even want to ask him his name, let alone something personal. She realized she was staring when Rube pointedly introduced him as Theodore Brown.

"Call me Theo," he said, holding out his hand for her to shake. His accent made him seem even better looking. George shook his hand, trying not to blush, and was actually grateful to Lauren when the Slayer took advantage of her invisibility to most people and climbed up to sit on the divider between the lines of booths. She dangled her feet perilously close to Rube's head and grinned at them.

"Lauren!" George said, though she didn't expect the Slayer to listen to her. But Theo laughed.

"Don't bother," he said. "Slayer Reaps are notoriously hard to control. And they stick around for far too long."  
"Oh, shit yeah," George said, sinking into the booth across from Rube and Theo. "So this is normal."

"Well," Theo began, but Rube said, "Wait for the rest, or we'll be here all night."

George rolled her eyes, but then put her arms on the table and rested her head on them. Rube and Theo talked quietly, and Lauren kept kicking the booth, but even so, she was almost asleep when Xander, Faith, and Dawn walked in. She sat up, trying to look awake and professional, but by the look on Rube's face, she didn't manage it.

Dawn slid into the booth next to George, Xander on her other side. Faith tossed her hair over one shoulder and sat next to Theo.

As soon as the three of them were seated, Rube said, "Everyone, this is - "

"Wesley," Dawn said. "Wow, Faith and Willow said you'd changed, and they weren't kidding."

Xander and Faith both stared at her for a moment, then looked at Theo, then stared at her again.

"This is Theodore Brown," Rube said.

"Call me Theo," Theo said again. He so deliberately didn't look gob smacked by Dawn's statement that George knew it must be true. She looked at Rube, who just barely shook his head at her, so she didn't say anything.

"No," Dawn said. "You're Wesley." She sounded halfway between convinced and doubtful.

"No, Dawnie," Xander said, sounding sad. "He's not. Wesley's dead, remember?"  
"Obviously, he's dead," Dawn said. "So is George." She turned to George and added, "Sorry."

"Still," Faith said. "I saw Wesley a lot more recently than you did, Dawn, and this dude ain't him."

"No," Theo-Wesley said. "I'm sorry - Dawn, is it? - but I'm not your friend."

"Oh, he wasn't my friend," Dawn said, watching him closely. "He was a bit of an ass, actually."  
"Then I'm sorry I remind you of him," Theo-Wesley said.

"Whatever," Faith said. "Can we get to the point? I've got Slayers dying here."

Dawn rolled her eyes at her, but she didn't question Theo-Wesley any more. She didn't seem convinced, though.

"Right," Rube said. "Theo Brown is the head of the Supernatural Division of Reapers here in Seattle. Someone in his group should have gotten Lauren's post-it instead of George. He doesn't know why that is, either."

Theo-Wesley shook his head. "I've never known this to happen before. Occasionally, Reapers will help out those in other divisions, if there's a need. But that kind of request always goes through the proper channels, and everyone knows what kind of Reap they're collecting. Some types of supernatural deaths have been up as of late, but my division is perfectly well-equipped to handle them."

"Some types?" Xander asked. "I'm Xander Harris, by the way, and this is Faith Lehane and Dawn Summers."

"Nice to meet you all," Theo-Wesley said. He looked quite deliberately into the eyes of all three of them, making George even more sure that Dawn was right. Theo Brown was his normal-person name, the name he used whenever he might run into people he's known during his life. He'd definitely known all three of these people.

"Deaths by vampire have been down," Theo-Wesley continued. "Thanks to you Slayers, I'm certain. As have the deaths that had been caused by that demon gang you took care of when you first arrived in Seattle - you didn't get all of them, by the way."

"Shit," Faith said. "Do you know where they're holed up?"

"Theo," Rube said, keeping his eyes on his menu.  
Theo-Wesley looked at him, then back at Faith. "The recent deaths have all been in the south-west part of the city," he said. "There haven't been many, so you did get most of them."

"We should have gotten all of them," Faith almost growled. "And any left means they'll recruit more. We need to deal with this soon, Xander."

"I'll put Bree on it," Xander said, and Dawn, who'd already pulled out her notebook, started scribbling madly. "She's good at patterns - she'll find them."

Faith nodded and turned back to Theo-Wesley, but before he could continue, Kiffany showed up, eyebrows raised.

"Sorry, Kiffany," Rube said. "We've been a little busy. What does everyone want to eat? The Reuben and the peach pie are quite good, and you can get breakfast any time."

There was a flurry to look at menus, and then everyone ordered something. Except Lauren, of course, who started whining about not being able to eat again. George pointed out that she could always move on if she was hungry, and she subsided, grumbling. Faith ordered an utterly amazing amount of food, even to George, who was used to watching Rube eat.

"So, deaths by most supernatural causes have been down," Theo-Wesley said once Kiffany had gone away again. "But deaths by werewolf have been very much up, and more of those have been Slayers than one would expect, even knowing about the Great Activation."  
"Is that what they're calling it?" Xander asked, grinning.

"That's what we're calling it, anyway," Theo-Wesley said. "It's no walk in the park, dealing with Slayers' souls. No offense, Lauren."

"You can see her, too?" Dawn asked. It was the first time she'd said anything to him since her identification had been shot down.

"Any Reaper can see her," Theo-Wesley said. "Supernatural Divisions all over the world have been dealing with more Slayer souls than before, of course, but nothing compares to here and now. Every one of my Reapers had a Slayer Reap following him around last month."

"How many do you have?" Faith asked.

"Five," Theo-Wesley said, looking confused.

"Fuck," Faith said. "We thought Lauren was the third Slayer we hadn't reached in time, which was bad enough, but now you're telling me there were at least three more?"

Theo-Wesley nodded. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Why are there so many Slayers in Seattle?" Xander asked, though George thought he wasn't really expecting an answer. "Was there anything different about these Slayers, Theo?"

"No, they seemed just like any other Slayer -"

"How do you know what Slayers are like?" Dawn asked, glaring at him.

"Dawn," Xander said, but Theo-Wesley smiled.

"Reapers don't age after they die," he said. "They stay looking the same age as the time they died forever. You don't know how old any of us really would be, if we were still alive. And I've met Slayers before."

Dawn narrowed her eyes at him, but Kiffany showed up then with their food, and sometime during the plate-juggling and trying to figure out who needed ketchup, she must have decided not to pursue it. George noticed Xander giving Theo-Wesley a funny look, too, so Dawn wasn't the only one who'd noticed how carefully he'd phrased that.

Once everyone was busy chewing, Rube, who had only ordered a piece of the peach pie and a coffee, put down his fork.

"While we're sorry that so many of your friends are dying," he said, "to us, this is just a day at the office. People die from all sorts of things, including werewolves. All I want to know is why George got a post-it she shouldn't have, and I don't think any of you know why."

Faith shook her head while taking a huge bite out of a hamburger, but Xander and Dawn looked thoughtful.

"We've often found that when something like that happens, there's a reason," Xander said. "I guess we should ask, is there anything unusual about you, George? Are you like other Reapers?"  
"She's a bigger fuck-up," Rube said.

"Asshole," George said, sticking her tongue out at him.

"But she's getting better," Rube said.

Of course, he didn't know what she'd done just the other day. She'd never heard of any other Reaper taking a graveling's soul, and neither had Mason or Daisy. But that didn't mean she was anything special. Maybe no one had ever thought of it before. She shrugged and shook her head at Xander.

"Hm," he said. "Well, we've called our friend Willow, who is one of the most powerful witches in the world, and she'll be here tomorrow. Maybe she'll have some ideas."

"Witches are real, too?" George said, feeling her world tilt yet again. "Pointy hats and broomsticks and everything?"

"Witches, yes," Xander said. "The other stuff, no. Anyway, she's also the smartest person I've ever met. She'll think of something."

"I hope so," George said. "Because Lauren says she's not going anywhere until her parents are safe, and I guess that won't be until your problem is fixed."

"So maybe we should -" Theo-Wesley started to say, but Rube cut him off.

"Lauren's parents are perfectly safe," he said. "The werewolves are targeting Slayers, not their parents."

"You don't know that," Lauren said. "And I'm not leaving until we know they are."

Faith snorted. "Let me guess, she just told you to go jump off a cliff."

"Basically," George said.

"Well," Xander said, standing up and taking out his wallet. "You're welcome over at Slayer Central anytime, George. And I have a feeling Lauren will make you visit."

George groaned and rested her head against the divider Lauren was sitting on. Lauren nudged her head with her knee at the same time Dawn patted her on the shoulder and slid out of the booth, pushing Xander out of her way and getting a smile in return. Faith took a few last fries off her plate and stuffed them in her mouth as she stood.

"See you," she said, and headed out the door. Dawn followed her, but Xander put some money down on the table and then pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it to George.

"Here's our number," he said. "Call if you need anything." Then he headed off, too.

"But how will you reach me if you need me or Lauren?" George called after him.

Xander didn't even turn around. "Willow will find you," he said over his shoulder.

"What the fuck?" George said, but he kept on walking, so she turned back to Rube and Theo-Wesley. "And what the fuck's up with Dawn recognizing you? Halloween was days ago."

"I have absolutely no idea," Theo-Wesley said. "Except that the Dawn I knew wasn't also a ball of green light. Did she tell you what that's all about?"  
"She said it was a long, long story," George said. "I've been a bit distracted - I haven't really asked."

"I think you should as soon as possible," Theo-Wesley said. "If that's not really Dawn -"

"What does it matter?" Rube said. "Whatever that girl is doesn't have anything to do with why George got that post-it."

"Probably not," Theo-Wesley said.

"And that's the important thing," Rube said. "I know you like these people, Wesley, and that dealing with problems like this used to be important to you. But it can't be anymore. A death is a death is a death, and all you're meant to do is collect the souls."

"He's given me the same speech many, many times," George said.

"One day you'll listen to it," Rube said, and George raised her hands at him.

"I've given that speech myself," Theo-Wesley said. "And meant it. But these people sometimes fight things that try to end the world. That would be bad for us, too."

"Would it?" George asked. "I mean, it'd be bad, yeah, but we're already dead."

"Are all the people you care about?" asked Theo-Wesley. "Or all the people they cared about? I think it would be bad for us."

"It probably would be," Rube said. "But we still aren't going to get involved. Especially not you. Dawn isn't going to drop this if you give her more time to see you."

"I know," Theo-Wesley said. "I know. It's just hard."

Rube sighed. "It always is."


	5. Chapter 5

Dawn waited until they all had their seatbelts on and Faith had started the car to speak.

"That was Wesley," she said.

Faith twisted around in her seat to back up, but she also gave Dawn an exasperated look.

"Seriously?" she said. "He looked nothing like Wesley, even if Wesley had aged ten years and put on twenty pounds."

"And he'd spent those ten years sitting in front of the TV drinking and smoking pot," Xander said.

"What?" Dawn said. "That's not…he didn't look like that."

"Oh, my little grasshopper, you are young and not yet used to the ways of the world," Faith said. She paused for several seconds, then added, "Did I just say that?"

"You did, and I'm so proud," Xander said.

"Wait, wait," Dawn said. "Really, I didn't see a guy that looked like you're saying. I saw Wesley. Older, sure, and more…more scruffy and harder somehow, and I have no idea where he got that amazing scar across his throat, but it was Wesley."

"Scar?" Faith said.

"You see a scar?" Xander said.

"Nope," Faith said.

"So, we're seeing one man, and Dawn's seeing another -"

"Wesley," Dawn said.

"Why would that be?"

"Well, he's a Reaper, and George, Mason, and Rube don't look too together, either. Maybe being a Reaper makes you look strung-out for some reason."

"Wait, what?" Dawn said. "They don't look strung-out to me. Mason's kind of cute."

"Huh," Faith said.

"That's interesting," Xander said, making her wish she could pull out her notebook to write it down. She wouldn't be able to read it later, though, what with the way Faith was driving. "And did you notice the way he worded that little speech about how Reapers don't age? He never said he was old…and he did say he knew Slayers."

"I did notice that," Faith said. "But why wouldn't he admit who he was? Dawn was pretty insistent."

"Yeah, and he didn't look at all surprised when I said it, either," Dawn said. "Wouldn't you think he'd react more if he wasn't expecting it? He seemed like he was mentally braced to deal with the possibility."

Xander nodded. "Maybe there's some rule against it," he said. "The post-its and the all the divisions - it seems like Reaping is a big bureaucracy."

"Wesley wouldn't follow the rules," Faith said.

Dawn stared at the back of her head. "The Wesley I knew totally would," she said.

"He changed," Faith said.

"Well, we won't be able to settle this now," Xander said. "Keep an eye out for him - if he's the head of the Supernatural Division of Reapers in Seattle, I'm sure we'll see him again. If Wesley's only mostly dead, we should talk to him. For one thing, to find out what really went down in Los Angeles with Angel and his group."

Dawn was a little hurt that they didn't quite believe her, but since she couldn't explain why she saw someone different than they did, she supposed she couldn't blame them. They hadn't really learned anything from Wesley - or Theo, or whatever his name was, aside from getting a confirmation that there were more Slayers in Seattle than there should have been. And that werewolves were targeting Slayers, but they didn't really need confirmation on that one.

By the time they got back to Slayer Central, it was full dark out, and the younger Slayers were eager for their assignments for patrolling. Xander told Bree about the remnants of the demon gang, and she headed off to the south-west part of the city, Liz in tow. Dawn thought about going with them, because Xander had said that Bree was good at patterns, and it would be interesting to watch them work. But Xander asked her to accompany Jen, the other fifteen-year-old Slayer, and she wanted to show him she was a team player, so she did. They didn't see anything more interesting than vampires, although Dawn thought she might have seen a Reaper heading away from one feeding they were too late to stop. He could have been a junkie instead of a Reaper, but Dawn didn't think so. She mentioned it to Xander the next morning at breakfast, and he nodded.

"I've been thinking about it, and it does make sense that they'd look different, in case they run into someone who knows they're dead. Don't know why they'd all look like strung-out bizarro versions of themselves, though."

Bree hadn't found any sign of the demon gang, but she had all of the Slayers' post-patrol reports for the past month stacked up next to her on the kitchen table and was searching for any patterns revolving around the south-west part of the city. Liz, Jen, and Katherine weren't up yet, so only Xander and Dawn headed off to the airport to pick up Willow. Dawn drove; Xander had learned to drive with only his one eye, but he preferred to do so only when alone in the car.

Willow came bopping off the plane, ecstatically hugging both of them and babbling about the flight, the demon gang in Rio, the book she'd been reading. She also passed along all of the messages from the two Slayers Xander had trained in Africa that were temporarily assigned to Rio. Even Dawn was feeling slightly dizzy by the time they'd picked up Willow's suitcase from the baggage claim, and it wasn't until they were half-way home that Willow's mood changed.

"I've been checking up on your problem," she said, "and you've got a powerful witch you're dealing with here. I mean, powerful. She managed both to hide Potentials from the First and to get a lot of them to move to Seattle, while somehow keeping werewolves from losing their human minds while transformed - "

"I'm not sure of that," Xander said.

"Huh?" Dawn said. "But that's what Oz said was happening."

"Yeah, but Oz hasn't actually seen any of these werewolves. What if their minds aren't completely human, they just have a command implanted into them? Like, bite Slayers."

"Like the hellhounds at the prom," Willow said. "Yes. I mean, it would be trickier than just showing them _Pretty in Pink_, but not as hard as having them keep their human minds. Good." She bit her lip and gazed out of the window.

"But you're not worried, right?" Dawn said. "This witch can't be as powerful as you are."

Willow turned her head to smile at her. "Of course she can be," she said, "but it's not the power that concerns me. This is a long-range plan, with lots of parts that had to go right. She had to know what the First was doing, for one thing, because having a werewolf bite a Potential would just get you a hot chick who turns wolfy every month. So what's her end goal?"

"An army of Slayer werewolves?" Xander said as he pulled the car into the garage. "I can see the appeal."

Dawn punched him in the shoulder for that comment, and then they all got out of the car and trooped into the house, Xander lugging Willow's suitcase. Faith, who had been lying on the sofa in the living room reading a comic book, sat up and waved at Willow. Willow walked right up to her and gave her a hug before sitting down on the sofa, too. Dawn saw Xander hid a grin at the look on Faith's face, and she said the first thing that came into her mind so she wouldn't laugh.

"How's she going to control them?"

"What?" Faith said.

"The Slayer werewolves," Dawn said. "Once she's made them, how's this witch going to control them? Slayers are pretty hard to control."

"Damn straight," Faith said.

"That's a really good question, Dawn," Willow said.

"Why don't we ask the werewolves we have chained up in the basement?" Faith said.

"You have werewolves - _how_ many werewolves do you have chained up in the basement?" Willow said.

"Six," Faith said, standing up and stretching. "Liz and Jen are standing guard today. Though, technically, they're not werewolves right now."

"Even better," Willow said, and they all trooped down to the basement.

Dawn hadn't been down there since the werewolves had been captured. She was surprised to see all six of them in one room, but supposed it was easier to guard them that way. They weren't really chained up anymore - each person had one hand cuffed to a bed or a chair, well separated from each other. Most of them were reading books or magazines, but put them down when Dawn, Willow, Xander, and Faith entered the room. One girl, who looked quite a bit younger than the rest, widened her eyes and hugged her knees up to her chin, but the rest looked more bored than apprehensive.

"Hello," Willow said, propping her hip on the edge of a table. "My name is Willow, and I'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind."

"Finally someone's talking to us," one guy said. "Those horrible girls won't say anything except 'Who's thirsty?' and 'Who needs to pee?'."

"I think the Slayers don't really know how to relate to you," Willow said. She didn't put any particular emphasis on the word 'Slayer,' but several of the prisoners flinched when she said it. "After all, you're all werewolves who've attacked them or their friends. That doesn't inspire chuminess." She paused for a moment to see if anyone would comment on that, but all she got was the same guy waving at her to go on. "So, my first question is, why did you attack Slayers? Wouldn't almost anyone else would be an easier target?"

Dawn had slid her back down the wall to sit on the floor so she could take notes, and Xander did the same next to her. Faith stayed standing, arms crossed and glaring at the prisoners. _She_ obviously knew how to relate to them. When Willow asked her question, Dawn wrote, "Don't we already know that?" on her notebook and nudged Xander with her elbow. He took the pen from her and wrote, "She's seeing if they'll lie."

"Judith wants us to bite Slayers," the belligerent guy said.

"Ah," Willow said. "And - what's your name, by the way?"

"Brian," the guy said. He had curly brown hair and blue eyes, and looked like he worked out a lot.

"Thank you," Willow said. "And, Brian, do you always do what Judith tells you to?"

Brian shrugged. "Not always. When it's important."

"Ah," Willow said again. She looked around to the rest of the group. "And what are all your names?" she asked.

There was a Tiffany, Josh, Geoffrey, Ryan, and Emma. Emma was the younger girl, who now had her face hidden in her knees.

"Emma?" Willow said. "Do you always do what Judith tells you to?"

Emma shook her head without lifting it from her knees.

"Emma, look at me," Willow said, and Dawn felt the power she put into those words. Emma looked up, tear tracks on her cheeks.

"No, I don't always," she said.

"Emma!" Brian said. "Do not say another word."

He had power, too - Dawn could feel it - but it was nothing compared to Willow.

"Emma," Willow said, putting a bit more power into it to counteract Brian's, "if you don't obey Judith all the time, why do you do it some of the time?"

"I don't know," Emma said, sniffling. "I just feel like I have to."

Willow turned to Brian and raised her eyebrows. "Would you care to explain that?"

Brian shrugged, though he looked a bit spooked. "What do you think? Mind control. It's fairly easy once you know how."

Only someone who knew her well would have seen Willow flinch. Her voice was completely level as she went on.

"All right, mind control," she said. "Does that apply only when you're in wolf form or all the time?"

Brian glared at Emma. "Better in wolf form, obviously."

"You're not asking the right questions," Tiffany said suddenly. She was a small woman in her late twenties, with long blond hair and big brown eyes. She had her hands clenched in her lap. "Why is she doing this to us? Why make us werewolves? Why make Slayers werewolves? What purpose could it possibly serve?"

"Hey, have you seen those Slayers?" Josh said. "I wouldn't mind having a bunch of them under mind control."

Out of the corner of her eye, Dawn could see Xander's innocent look. Willow must have, too, because she shot him a mock glare.

"Somehow, I don't think that's Judith's motivation," Tiffany said.

"Then what is?" Willow asked her.

Tiffany shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "Believe me, if I did, I'd tell you. I don't want to be doing these things any more than Emma does. Brian's the only true believer her, anyway. The rest of us just want to go home."

"She doesn't let you go home?" Xander said, sitting up. He was really big on getting all of the Slayers time with their families - even the ones from Africa or South America, where that took major planning.

"No, you're not letting them go home," Brian said. "Judith allows them to live their normal lives for the most part."

"Yeah, except for the part where she turned us into monsters and sets us on young girls every month, she's a peach," Tiffany said.

"Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do to make you not be a werewolf," Willow said, "although I know several who are ordinary members of society who just have to make sure they're chained up three nights a month. On the other hand, I might be able to do something about the mind control."

"No!" Brian said, jumping to his feet and making his handcuff clatter.

Willow smiled at him. "You won't be able to stop me," she said. "I'm willing to try if you are, but I'm not if there might be weird side-effects, what with the unknown witch and unknown spell."

Tiffany bit her lip. "I'm betting you're the good guys, and you're planning on taking Judith out, right?"

Willow nodded. "You've all found out the hard way that the monsters you thought were myths aren't. Werewolves, vampires, demons, magic...they're all real."

"Demons?" Emma said, shrinking into herself even more.

"But there are good guys," Willow went on, ignoring her. "You've met the Slayers; they fight the monsters. The rest of us are people who help the Slayers." She paused. "We're not called anything; well, Xander's a Watcher. Maybe we need a name. What do you think, Dawnie?"

Dawn was saved from having to answer by Xander.

"Not the important thing here, Will," he said.

"Right," Willow said, turning back to Tiffany. "Sorry. Anyway. Yes, we're the good guys, and we will take this witch down."

"You'll try," Brian said.

Both Willow and Tiffany ignored him.

"Then, if you don't mind, I think I'll wait on the mind control reversal thing until you take her out. I mean, what if it goes wrong and I wind up brain dead? Once she's gone, the mind control will be, too, right?"

"Most likely," Willow said. "And if it's not, I can try then. We'll have to keep you chained up here until then, though. We can't have you running around when you're under her control."

"Oh, yeah," Tiffany said. "Just let me call into work, and I'll treat this like a vacation. Good book, by the way." She held up George R.R. Martin's _A Game of Thrones_, which Xander or Bree must have left down here at some point.

Willow smiled at her, then turned to the others. "What about the rest of you? Do you want me to try now, or wait?"

Josh, Geoffrey, and Ryan looked at each other, then back to Willow.

"Wait," Josh said, and the others nodded.

"Me, too," Emma said, "but can I call my parents?" She paused and looked confused. "What will I tell my parents?"

"Xander will figure something out," Willow said. "He was always the best at coming up with excuses for our parents."

"Thanks so much," Xander said, standing up. Willow grinned at him and she left the room. Dawn and Faith followed her out, Dawn running up the stairs to catch up with her.

"You didn't ask them how this Judith is doing the mind control," she said. "I thought we wanted to know that."

"I do know that now," Willow said, sinking down onto the sofa in the living room. "Once I was in the same room with them, it was easy to figure out. Like I thought, it wasn't really something that took a lot of power." She frowned and gazed at the coffee table without seeing it. "But I've never seen mind control done quite this way before this. I mean, there are only so many ways of controlling someone's mind, and I thought I knew all of them, but obviously not, because here's one I didn't know. I wonder if this Judith came up with it on her own, or if she found it in some old spellbook somewhere, though I would think the Devon Coven would have known about it, if so... Anyway, I think we should go on the assumption that she's making all of this up, which makes her so much more dangerous."

"Damn straight," Faith said. "Unpredictable."

"Very," Willow said. "She seems to only use the amount of power necessary for a task, which is unusual in evil beings that want to rule the world. Or destroy it. Either way."

"I'd really like to know what her end game is," Xander said, entering the room just then. "But I suppose it doesn't really matter - she's way too dangerous to allow in polite society. She's like Magneto."

"She can manipulate metal with her mind?" Dawn asked, all wide-eyed and pretend innocence. Xander stuck out his tongue at her.

"We knew that already," Faith said. "That we have to take her out, I mean, not that she's Ian McKellan. What?" she added when everyone stared at her. "The first two movies were kick-ass. Plus, the dude's hot."

"He's so old," Dawn said.

"And gay," Willow said.

"Just 'cause he hasn't met me yet," Faith said and grinned at them.

"Anyway," Willow said, shaking her head, "I think I know what her end game is. If Brian's right, anyway. He was thinking it pretty loudly. All she wants is a lot of money and a lot of power to control people - make people invite her to parties and stuff like that. She's doing all this just to be popular."

"Huh," Xander said, looking thoughtful. "We should have thought of that in high school."

"We still have to take her out, though," Faith said after a few moments. "Trying to turn Slayers into werewolf slaves is not going to get her invited to _our_ parties."

"Of course," Xander said. "Still, you have to admit it's refreshing. At least we don't have an apocalypse on our hands."


	6. Chapter 6

George managed to placate Lauren the next day by promising her that they'd go over to Slayer Central as soon as she got off work. Having Lauren around had at least lessened the weirdness between George and Daisy, or maybe added so much weirdness that the two cancelled each other out. Daisy, of course, kept trying to figure out ways they could make money off of Lauren being there, but George nixed every one. She did not want to get involved in any more schemes of Daisy's, and she was still freaked out by how normal Daisy was acting after everything that had happened recently.

"Georgia," Daisy said when she'd finally asked her about it, "if I fell apart every time a boyfriend died in front of me...well." And tossed her hair out of her face without saying anything else.

After that weirdness, Lauren was a nice break. At first all she wanted to do was go out and Slay vampires, and since she couldn't touch anything, that was easily handled. After that, she wanted to go see her parents, but both George and Daisy came up with so many horror stories about dead people going to see the people they'd loved that even someone as stubborn as Lauren gave up on that idea. Then she had a crying jag about how much life she was going to miss, which annoyed George and made her feel guilty at the same time. So, just your normal Reaper weirdness.

Rube did give George a post-it that morning, but the Reap was easily taken care of on her lunch hour. The poor guy had just been walking along, minding his own business, when a brush dropped from a window cleaning team on the forty-fifth floor, killing him instantly. The soul seemed more dazed than surprised or angry, and not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. He'd headed off quite contentedly to his lights, which looked like a calm seashore, without a single look back to where George and Lauren stood.

"Not even the least bit tempted to go with him?" George asked Lauren.

"Go with him where?" Lauren said, looking in a completely wrong direction.

"You can't see them?" George said, then shrugged. "I suppose not. Shit."

Lauren grinned at her. "Guess you're stuck with me for awhile."

George felt herself growl, which annoyed her. "We've got to fix this problem," she said.

Which was why she was ringing the doorbell at Slayer Central at 5:20 pm instead of doing...well, almost anything else, probably involving a beer. She'd changed into more comfortable clothes in the bathroom at Happy Time, which she hated doing, because Dolores always wanted to know why. She wouldn't have bothered, but Lauren had told her that she really wanted to watch the experienced Slayers at work, and George supposed she owed her that much. She didn't think running after vampires would go well in a pencil skirt and heels. Lauren told her to say she was getting together with friends, and she did it, but she still hated telling Dolores anything about her personal life. It gave her too much leverage to pry the next time.

Liz answered the door and stood aside for them to enter. "You're just in time," she said, grinning, once George (and Lauren, but Liz couldn't see her) was inside and the door was shut.

"What for?" George said. "It's not the full moon anymore, and sunset's not for hours, so we can't go hunting vampires yet, right?"

"True," Liz said, leading the way into the living room, which was a scene of organized chaos. Willow sat on the sofa, huge books spread out on the coffee table in front of her, the sofa itself, and the floor. Xander was pacing along one side of the room, with Dawn, Bree, and Jen literally following along. Dawn even had her ever-present notebook and was scribbling while Xander talked. The other Slayer - George thought her name was Kristin - was doing what looked like Tai Chi off in another corner. Faith was the only one who seemed normal; she was sitting on the other side of the sofa from Willow, feet tucked under her, reading a magazine.

"What the fuck?" George said.

Liz laughed. "We're going to pay a visit on Judith this evening," she said, obviously trying to sound high society. In her normal voice, she added, "Willow's researching spells or something, and Xander's talking strategy. He likes to move when he's doing that."

"George!" Xander said, interrupting himself. Dawn and Bree looked annoyed, though Jen looked almost relieved. "Is everything okay?"  
"I still have a Slayer trailing after me everywhere, totally fucking up my life, if that's what you mean," George said.

"Oh, good," Xander said, looking distracted. "Did Liz tell you what's going on?"

George nodded. "You're paying a visit on the witch who's causing all our problems."

"We're hoping to take her out now," Faith said, not looking up from her magazine.

"It's a reconnaissance mission," Willow said, also not looking up from her books. It sounded like they'd had this argument before.

"That clears things up," George said, and Liz snorted beside her.

"When will you be ready, Will?" Xander said.

Willow closed the book she'd been studying. "I'm ready now. She's such an innovator, I'm not sure how much of this will be useful, anyway."

"Let's hope some of it, at the very least," Xander said, and she smiled at him.

They all piled into the two SUVs that were parked in the garage and headed off. Dawn was driving the SUV George and Lauren were in, and when George saw the way Faith was driving ahead of them, she was glad. Eventually, they reached the section of town where her mother would kill to live. The houses were all huge, but they were also all different, made of good materials, and with a lot of tree-covered land. No McMansions in this neighborhood. The house they pulled up to was one of the nicest George had seen, but after a few moments of admiring it, she realized that no one was moving.

"Should we really be sitting out here like this?" she asked Dawn. "Won't Judith know we're here and have time to prepare herself?"  
"We hope she does," Dawn said. "This is recon mission, whatever Faith likes to say to tease Willow. We want to know Judith's defenses so we can figure out how to counter them."

That made sense, but just sitting there was making George's skin crawl. Besides, Lauren kept chattering in her ear, about how much she wished she could touch Judith so she could get back at her for killing her and leaving her parents alone. George was glad when Faith, Willow, and Xander got out of the other SUV and everyone else followed. They formed up on Willow and Faith, with George hanging in the back, suddenly wondering why she was even there. True, Lauren had insisted that she wouldn't stay behind, and none of the others had indicated in any way that she wasn't welcome to come, but she was a Reaper, not a super-hero. What was she doing here?

Before she could answer that to her satisfaction, they reached the front door of Judith's house and Willow rang the doorbell. Everyone was quiet and tense, waiting for the response from within. And almost everyone jumped when the door opened and a butler - looking straight out of Jeeves and Wooster - asked if he could help them.

"We are here to see Judith," Willow said.

The butler just slightly raised his eyebrows, but he might as well have asked out loud, "All of you?" George felt herself flush, but Willow didn't seem at all bothered and raised her eyebrows right back at him.

"Right this way," the butler said, opening the door wider and motioning them all inside.

The house was even more amazing inside than it was outside. Marble floors, two huge chandeliers, small tables with Chinese-looking vases, artwork that George suspected was all original...and that was just the hall. The butler led them into a large room that was floor-to-celing books and had an Oriental rug that covered almost the whole floor. Behind a huge mahogany desk sat a young woman, one of the most beautiful women George had ever seen. She had hair the color of autumn leaves, perfect skin, and bright green eyes, and she made Willow, who had similar coloring, look washed-out and tired. She didn't stand up.

"You have my people," she said, in a low, melodious voice.

"Your people?" Willow said, sounding high-pitched and breathy in comparison. "All but one of them begged me to remove your control of their minds. They want to wait until we've taken you out, of course, because they don't trust you not to have done something nasty as a trap."

"The one was Brian, of course," Judith said, folding her hands together in front of herself so her finger-tips touched. She looked both graceful and elegant, and like every evil mastermind George had ever seen in the movies. All at the same time.

"Yes, he seems quite devoted to you," Willow said. "Extra-strong dose of mind control?"

Judith shook her head. "That was all Brian. Well, and this." She gestured to herself.

"Yeah, nice glamour," Willow said, and George felt better when she saw Xander flinch. Even knowing the way Judith looked wasn't real, George was still bowled over by her beauty.

"Thank you," Judith said. "This one was for you."

"Hm," Willow said. "Competing with me, or do you think I'm narcissistic?"  
Judith laughed, and it actually sounded like a brook running over wind chimes. George crossed her arms over her chest, truly annoyed now. She started looking around the room, at anything other than Judith.

"Competing," Judith said. "If I wanted to throw you the other way, I would have looked like this."

Dawn gasped, making George look back at Judith. She was still beautiful, but now she had honey-colored hair and big eyes, with a figure so roundly luscious even George was almost turned on.

"You're several years out of date," Willow said, though it sounded like it was an effort for her to keep her voice pleasant.

"Is that so?" Judith said. "Ah, well. I do like this form, though. It feels comfortable. Though, perhaps..."  
And she changed form again. This time, she was much thinner, with sharper - though still beautiful - features. Her short hair was a rich brown, and her eyes lit up the room. Xander was the one who gasped this time, and a second later, Faith launched herself at Judith, hands reaching for her throat.

She bounced off thin air four feet from the desk.

"Do control your Slayer, Willow," Judith said as Faith got up off the floor and stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest. "Surely, we can all be civilized."

"Civilized?" Dawn said, making George want to clap her hands over her ears. "You call this civilized?"

"Dawn," Xander said, but Judith had already turned on her.

"If civilized people could do this, they would," she said. She tilted her head slightly to one side and smiled. "Would you like me to look like this?"  
"No," Willow said, and Judith looked annoyed without changing her form into something else. George felt Dawn sag with relief beside her, though Xander was still stiff.

"You shouldn't be able to do that," Judith said.

"I've been told that before," Willow said. "Shall we get down to it? We have no objection to you playing house here, and making yourself look and sound beautiful seems harmless, if pointless, but deliberately creating werewolves and sending werewolves against Slayers is simply unacceptable."  
"Pointless?" Judith said. "Spoken by someone who has always been pretty. Do you have any idea how much easier things are when you're beautiful? I don't have to use nearly as much magic now. Oh, and how will you stop me?"

Willow opened her mouth to reply, but just then, the door opened and Oz walked in.

Maybe there had been too many shocks, because this time, no one gasped or even flinched. While Oz was walking over towards Judith, he made a strange little hand movement that George saw only because she was in the right line of sight. She didn't think Judith saw it. Oz put an open folder on Judith's desk, which she glanced at and then signed.

"Sorry about that," she said as Oz left the room again, not even glancing at any of them. "Business, you know. So, Willow, I think you were going to tell me how you're planning to stop me from doing anything I want."

"Yeah, because I'm just that stupid," Willow said. But then George lost track of the conversation, because she saw a graveling peeking out from around the desk.

She quickly looked around for any sharp or heavy objects that the graveling could move just slightly to facilitate an accidental death. She didn't see any, though she suspected that Faith, at least, had one or more sharp objects somewhere on her person. But she'd barely had time to think how fucked-up it would be for Judith to die of an accident with all of them there before she realized how oddly the graveling was acting. Every other graveling she'd ever seen had been moving quickly and confidently, knowing exactly what to move and how to move it. They always looked like they were having fun, too, which creeped George out, and she knew she wasn't the only Reaper who felt that way. This graveling wasn't moving at all, and it looked almost timid, with just one hand and half of its face peering out around the corner of the desk.

It was looking right at her.

George kept her face towards Judith and looked at the graveling out of the corner of her eye. She knew that most Reapers saw gravelings best when they did that, though she'd always been able to see them just fine even looking straight at them. But somehow she didn't want Judith to know she'd seen it. The graveling was looking at her with the most beseeching eyes she'd ever seen on anything, but she had no idea what it wanted from her or how to do it if she figured it out.

"George?" Dawn said, tugging on her arm.

George blinked and realized that everyone was turning and heading for the door. She started to follow, and almost bumped into Willow, who turned back around, smiling slightly nastily back at Judith.

"Nice try," she said.

"You, too," Judith said. "Except that yours was just power, and you have no idea how I did it."

Willow turned back around, and George followed her out the door, really not feeling good about her chances of getting rid of Lauren any time soon.


	7. Chapter 7

As soon as they got back in the car, George turned to Dawn. "Did you know that Oz dude was going to be there?"  
"Nope," Dawn said. "But he's obviously spying, and he'll get us info when he can."

George stared at her. Dawn wasn't the least bit surprised that her friend had apparently, completely on his own, decided to spy on someone who was powerful enough to worry Willow. And from the way everyone talked Willow was Dumbledore and Gandalf combined. Dawn didn't seem at all impressed at what Oz had done, either. George was.

"What?" Dawn said, doing that looking sideways out of the corner of her eyes thing as she drove.

"You're acting like that's normal," George said, and when Dawn still looked confused, she added, "Oz putting himself in danger like that."

Dawn shrugged. "For us, it kind of is," she said. "When your sister's the Slayer, you tend to want to live up to that. Xander and Willow got into it way back in high school, and then Oz dated Willow for awhile. It snowballs."

"Oz and Willow dated?" Liz said from the back seat. "It thought Willow was gay."

Dawn shrugged again. "She says she is, but I saw her with Oz...she's bi, no question. Now," she added with the air of someone trying to change the subject, "what did you notice in there that will affect our strategy?"

Liz, Jen, and Kristen all groaned.

"Xander's going to ask us that," Jen said. "Do we have to go over it twice?"

"You don't want to get some practice in?" Dawn said, raising her eyebrows at the in the rearview mirror. "I always like to talk through things beforehand. Plus," she added to George, "I think best out loud."

"That's probably why you're going to be a Watcher, and we're Slayers," Liz said. "The wanting to practice beforehand thing, not the thinking out loud thing. That's just weird."

Kristen nudged her with her elbow. "At least she thinks." Liz nudged her back, and it degenerated into such a rowdy shoving match that even Dawn couldn't have thought out loud. George was impressed Dawn could manage to drive with all of that going on behind her. She didn't want to distract her with questions, but when they got back to Slayer Central, she pulled her aside before they entered the house.

"Did you see the graveling by Judith's desk?" she asked.

Dawn stared at her. "First of all, no. Second of all, what's a graveling?"

"Is that what that was?" Lauren asked. She'd sulked most of the way back, because she couldn't join in the shoving match, but now she looked interested. "That weird, scaly-looking animal thing?"  
"Yeah," George said, surprised. She hadn't known Reaps could see gravelings, but then most of them didn't stick around as long as Lauren had.

"But what _is_ it?" Dawn asked. "And why couldn't I see it?"

"Only Reapers, and apparently Reaps, can see gravelings," George said. "I thought maybe you could, because you're...weird. Gravelings are what causes the accidents that make people on my post-its die. If someone slips on a banana peel and gets his head smashed in a revolving door, a graveling moved the banana peel into the perfect spot. I've actually seen that, by the way." She didn't mention how gravelings were made - besides the fact that she suspected she wasn't supposed to know, she didn't think it was relevant.

Dawn gave a little shudder. "And Judith has one in her study? What -"  
Xander stuck his head out the door to the house. "What do you ladies want on your pizza?" he asked. "And no, Dawn, you can't have anchovies."

"But maybe George likes them," Dawns said, turning her beseeching eyes on her. They really were beseeching eyes, but over anchovies, George could withstand them.

"Sorry," she said with a shudder of her own. "That's just nasty. Sweet peppers and onions or sausage," she said to Xander. "Or whatever, really, except pepperoni. Or anchovies."

Xander grinned at her. "Sweet peppers and onions sounds interesting, and we've never done it before, so I can guarantee at least one of those. Are you two going to join us? We're calling Buffy and Giles now."

"Yeah," Dawn said, hurrying towards him. "George saw something over there that might be important, though."  
"Good," Xander said, ushering George into the house and leading the way towards the living room through the kitchen. "I have a feeling we need outside-the-box thinking on this one."

There were so many people in the living room that George sat on the floor next to Dawn, her back propped up against the wall. Lauren sat next to her, although George had to stop Bree, who had been calling in the pizza order, from sitting on top of her. Bree slid over, looking bemused, but George remembered how odd it had felt passing through people from when she was still insubstantial when she'd first died, and she didn't want Lauren to have to deal with it if she didn't have to. Dawn had pulled out her notebook and was already writing rapidly. George suspected it was what she'd told her in the garage, but she didn't look. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Willow, Xander, and Faith sat in a line on the sofa, bent over the phone on the coffee table. As soon as a cultured-sounding British voice came on, Faith gestured for silence. Liz, Jen, and Kristen finally stopped their shoving match, dropping down on to the loveseat and chair, trying to look attentive.

"Hey, Giles," Xander said. "We have you on speaker. Willow and Faith are here, and Dawn, of course, and our Slayers - Bree, Kristen, Liz, and Jen. And we also have George, who is a Grim Reaper."

"A what?" Giles asked.

"You mean you don't know what a Grim Reaper is, G-man?" Xander said, grinning at the phone. "I thought you knew everything. My world is off its moorings."

Giles snorted. "You thought nothing of the sort. What is a Grim Reaper?"  
"I'll let George explain it herself," Xander said. "But maybe we should wait for Buffy."

"Buffy's here," said someone who must be Buffy. "Hey, Xander, hey, Giles, hey, everyone. What have you gotten my sister into this time, Xander?"

"I'm fine, Buffy," Dawn said, sounding exasperated.

"And you're going to stay that way," Buffy said. "No heroics."  
"Are you kidding me?" Dawn said. "I'm going to sit back and let the Slayers and Willow be the heroes on this one."

"Faith, please make sure she actually does that," Buffy said.

"You got it, B," Faith said, though she rolled her eyes as she said it.

"Good," Buffy said. "So, what's a Grim Reaper?"

George sighed, but explained what she was yet again. Neither Buffy nor Giles said anything until she was finished, and then Buffy gave a sad little laugh.

"So, people are fated to die? Every time I got there too late to save someone, it was fate?"

George groaned. No one understood this.

"It's not fate," she said. "Everyone has free will, but all that free will leads each person to that place and time where they die. And someone way the hell above my pay grade knows what that place and time is."

"How is that not fate?" Giles said.

"And what about when someone dies, but then comes back to life?" Buffy said. "I mean, I've died twice."

"You mean, someone did CPR on you or used a defribrillator? It wasn't your time. There wouldn't have been a post-it for you."

"Well, one was like that," Buffy said. "But the other..."

She trailed off, and after a few moments of silence, Willow spoke up.

"The other time, she was dead for months, and I brought her back with magic. It was against the natural order of things."

"No shit?" George said. "Then someone must have taken your soul. What did your lights look like?"

"Not relevant," Xander said, shaking his head at George.  
"Sorry," she said to the phone. "Occupational question, don't worry about it. But I don't know anything about magic. Maybe Theo, from the Supernatural Division, could tell you more about that."

Beside her, Dawn snorted softly. "Theo, yeah, right," she muttered under her breath.

"Anyway," Xander said. "George is the Reaper who was assigned to collect the soul of one of the Slayers who was killed by a werewolf."

"We didn't get there in time, B," Faith said, hands clenched in her lap.

"Faith, it happens," Buffy said. "I know you did all you could."

"Apparently," Xander said, after he'd waited to see if Faith would say anything else, "some souls don't want to pass on to wherever they're going, and this Slayer is one of them. Her name is Lauren, and she's still here, though only George can see or hear her. I'm assuming she's here, George."

"Yeah," George said and gestured to the space between herself and Bree. Lauren had her arms crossed over her chest and was glaring at everyone, but George didn't feel like she needed to mention that. "She says she'll be here until Judith's no longer a threat. And I'd appreciate it if that happens quickly, because she's a fucking pain in the ass."

Surprisingly, everyone laughed at that, even Buffy and Giles.

"She's a Slayer, all right," Buffy said.

"Lauren, we will do everything we can to get you where you're supposed to go," Giles said. "Where is that, George?"

"I don't know," George said through clenched teeth. "I'm here, not there."

"Hm," Buffy said. "Well anyway, what's the what, guys?"

Willow and Xander looked at each other, and then Willow started to speak. She told Buffy and Giles everything they had seen and heard that Judith's house, as well as what the werewolves in the basement had told them. Everyone had been surprised when they had seen Oz at Judith's, apparently, but everyone had also assumed what Dawn had - that he was there spying. They hoped he would be able to report to them soon, but Xander put in that they needed to plan with the assumption that they wouldn't hear from him before they needed to attack. Giles agreed.

"It is completely unacceptable that someone is deliberately creating werewolves and subjecting innocent people to that burden," he said. "For that alone, we must stop her as soon as we can."

"Yeah, plus she wants to take over the world," Xander said.

Willow actually grinned at him. "We're not calling her Brain," she said.

"Narf!" Xander said.

George ignored them. She leaned over and whispered to Dawn," Take over the world? I thought she just wanted to be popular."

"That's her plan to make herself popular," Dawn whispered back. "I _thought_ you were completely out of it just then. Was that when you saw that grave-thing?"  
George nodded at her and turned her attention back to the phone conversation. Her wanting to take over the world certainly made defeating Judith more urgent than just a plan to be popular.

"Could she do it, Will?" Buffy asked. "What's she got going for her?"

"Well, she's powerful," Willow said. "Though it was hard to really gauge her strength, because she uses it in such weird ways. I don't think she's really as powerful as I am, she's just...sideways."

"Sideways?" Giles said.

"I can't really explain it," Willow said, squirming a little. "I've never seen magic used quite this way before. Or...maybe the source is different? But that shouldn't affect the way it's used, should it?"

"Hm," Giles said. After a pause, he added, "Is she receiving her power from a god, the way Ethan does from Janus?"

"Huh," Willow said, looking like she was furiously thinking. "Maybe. I don't know which one, though. Is there a god of thinking sideways?"

George leaned over to Dawn again. "Are you fucking telling me gods are real? Gods, plural?"

Dawn sighed. "It's complicated. Some gods are real, real enough to grant powers, anyway, but they're not usually what the people worshipping them think they are. Shh."

George leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest. This shit just got weirder and weirder.

"...it matters anyway," Willow was saying. "We need to figure out a way to take her down, however she got her powers."

"if we knew from whence she was getting her powers, we might be able to disrupt them at the source," Giles said.

"Take on another god," Buffy said. "That leads to not good things. Very not good things."

"Maybe we could disrupt the connection at her end," Xander said. "Make her unacceptable to the god for some reason. What would happen if Ethan Rayne became too lawful?"

"Janus wouldn't support him anymore," Giles said. "Yes, exactly. Good thinking, Xander."

"Go D&D," Xander said, grinning. Willow nudged him with her elbow.

"Maybe Oz will know who her god is," Faith said.

"We can hope," Buffy said.

"Let's assume we don't figure out the source of her power," Giles said. "We still need to defeat her. Ideas?"

Everyone started throwing out ideas, ranging from bombing Judith's house with her in it (Liz) to bringing something called the coven over from England and using that (Dawn). It seemed to be Willow's taks to shoot the ideas down.

"She has an amazing shield," she said, shaking her head at Liz. "I don't think even a bomb could get through it. Not to mention the probable loss of innocent life if we did that."

"Incidental damage," Liz said, shrugging. "We're trying to save the world."

The look Xander gave her promised a stern retribution for that comment. Or at least a stern lecture; George couldn't imagine Xander exacting retribution on anyone.

"And her shield is crazy-strong against magical attacks, too," Willow said. "Maybe me plus the whole coven working together could take it out. But if it didn't work, we'd all be completely vulnerable to whatever she'd throw at us afterwards."

"But you got through it," Dawn said. "You stopped her from...from changing again."

"Changing again?" Buffy said.

"She pulled a Princess Langwidere," Willow said. Everyone stared at her, confused, and she sighed. "No one's read the Oz books?"

"I did," Bree said, raising her hand, but she still looked confused.

"The princess in 'Ozma in Oz' who had all the different heads so she can look like a different beautiful girl every day."

"Oh," Bree said, nodding. "I always thought she was creepy."

"That's good," Willow said. "Judith apparently liked the idea. She first looked like an extremely gorgeous version of me," she added toward the phone. "Then she changed to a perfect version of Tara, then Anya."

"Ouch," Buffy said. "I'm sorry, guys."

Willow reached over and grabbed Xander's hand.

"We managed," she said.

"I'm proud of all of you," Giles said. "But you stopped her from changing again?"

"Yeah, she turned her attention to Dawn," Willow said, looking apologetically over at Dawn, "and I didn't want her to have to deal with that. I suspected she was going to change into Joyce."

George actually heard Dawn swallow beside her, and when she looked at her, she realized that Dawn hadn't thought of that before.

"Thank you, Willow," Buffy said, sounding sad. "How did you do it? And can you do it again?"

Willow shook her head. "I got in sideways, but I really don't think I could use that to attack her magically. I tried on the way out, and it totally didn't work."

"Hm," Buffy said. "By the way, I know these aren't its tactics, but are we sure she's not the First Evil? It could look like dead people, too."

"I never died," Willow said. "And anyway, no. I could feel her magical presence, and it wasn't anything like the First Evil."

"Plus, Oz touched her," Dawn said.

"Plus that," Willow said.

"Okay," Buffy said. "But if we can't attack her magically, and we can't attack her the normal way, what's left?"

Everyone was quiet for a few moments, and then Dawn suddenly sat up straight.

"Oh!" she said. "Maybe her power source is the grave-thing."

"Grave-thing?" Willow said, sounding dubious. "She didn't feel like a necromancer, though I suppose -"

"No, no," Dawn said. "George saw a grave-thing in Judith's study, and she knows what it is."

George sighed. "It's a _graveling_, not a grave-thing." She went over her banana peel explanation again.

"Still not seeing how this isn't fate," Buffy said.

"Look," George said. "I'm just a fucking Reaper, okay? I'm not even on Rube's level, and he's just middle management. Sometimes I feel like I don't know shit. And I don't know why this isn't fate, all I know is that it fucking isn't."

"It's all right, George," Xander said. "We're obviously not going to settle this right now, so let's leave it. What -"

He was interrupted by the pizza arriving and all of the younger Slayers and Dawn jumped up to get it. Soon, George had two pieces of her sweet peppers and onions pizza, which made her happier, especially when she saw how much the Slayers were eating. Xander kept talking into the phone the whole time, but with everything so chaotic, George couldn't hear what he was saying. When everyone had their food and drink, he turned back to her.

"If gravelings are there to cause fatal accidents, why was there one in Judith's study? No one died while we were there. Do they usually hang around for awhile before or after?"

"No, they don't," George said. "And I have no fucking clue why it was there. It was acting fucking weird, too."

"Why?" Xander said. "What was it doing?"

"It's more what it wasn't doing," George said. "It wasn't skittering around, it wasn't laughing maniacally, it wasn't creeping me the hell out. It looked almost sad, but that's impossible."

"It definitely looked sad," Lauren said. "And like it wanted you to help it."

"Lauren agrees with me," George said.

"I said more than that," Lauren said.

"And she thinks it wanted me to help it," George said. She didn't want to, but she knew Lauren wouldn't let it go.

"So maybe it's a prisoner," Dawn said. "And that's what's giving Judith her power - she's tapping into the grave-thing."

"Graveling," George said. "It's not fucking Greek."

Dawn gave her a sideways grin.

"I have no idea how," Willow said. "Is a graveling a demon?"

George stared at her. Someone had mentioned demons before, but she'd managed to ignore it. "You mean, hellfire, brimstone, that kind of demon?"

Willow shook her head. "Not really. Demons are just another type of lifeform. Some of them are really nasty and you wouldn't want to run into them in a dark alley, but some of them are nice, productive members of society."

"No shit?" George said. "How come I've never seen one?"

"They're really good at either hiding or blending in, whichever will work best," Xander said. "You might have even met one and not known it."

"No shit?" George said again, and then shook her head. "I have no idea if gravelings are demons or not. You guys would know better than I would."  
"Giles?" Xander said. "Any references to gravelings in the books?"

"I just called Vi in to look at the database," Giles said. "Any - no, nothing. If they can only be seen by Reapers and dead souls, I suppose that makes sense. Maybe no Watcher has ever seen one."

"There must have been someone, somewhere, who was a witch or a Watcher or whatever who then became a Reaper," Willow said. "How do Reapers get chosen, anyway, George?"  
"That's another thing I don't really know," George said. "Rube told me that when a Reaper has collected a certain number of souls, his next Reap becomes a Reaper and he gets to go wherever he's going. But I don't know what that number is, or if it's the same for every Reaper or not."

"Really?" Willow said. "That's fascinating? Is it a large number or a small number? How old is the oldest Reaper you know?"

"Well, I know one from the Titanic...wait! I did meet some guys from the Black Death, but they're in the Plague Division, and there isn't much need for their services around here."

"AIDS," Faith said.

"Yeah, business is probably picking up a bit," George said.

"The Black Death," Willow said, looking thrilled. "Do you suppose I could meet them? Imagine what they've seen."

"After we solve this, Will," Xander said, and she nodded, though she still looked uplifted. George groaned knowing that Rube would not be happy with her.

"So, no witches or Watchers or whatever ever became Reapers?" Dawn said. "Either that's deliberate or it's just not true."

"Or it did happen, but the whatever didn't let his knowledge get into the books," Xander said. "You're not supposed to be telling us some of this, are you, George?"

"I'm not supposed to be telling you any of this," George said. "Rube is going to go ape-shit. But it really seems like the graveling is involved somehow...so" She trailed off. Rube really was going to kill her, but what the fuck. "Reapers aren't supposed to contact people we knew when we were alive. It's a good policy, for the most part." It was, she knew it was, she'd learned that the hard way, but that still didn't make it easy. She couldn't imagine how hard it must have been for any people like these who became Reapers not to be able to share this information with their friends. Suddenly, she realized not only that she'd recently met someone like that, but that Dawn, Xander, and Faith had, too.

"So," Dawn said, and George groaned, knowing what she was going to say before she said it. "If you're not supposed to contact the people you knew when you were alive, do you look different than you did when you were alive?"  
George kept her eyes tight shut and didn't answer.

"She's got a point," Xander said. "Language aside, you don't seem like you've lived the life you'd have had to live to look like that."

"Gee, thanks," George said.

"C'mon, George," Dawn said. "That was Wesley, wasn't it?"

"Wesley?" Giles said. "Wesley's dead."

"So is George," Dawns said. "George's boss Rube introduced us to the head of the Supernatural Division of Reapers in Seattle. He told us about patterns of deaths due to werewolves and a demon gang, and stuff. He said his name was Theodore Brown, and Xander and Faith saw a man who looked - how did you describe him, Xander? - like he'd spent years sitting in front of the TV eating chips and smoking pot. But I saw Wesley."

"How is that possible?" Giles asked.

"Well," Dawn said, "you know I'm a little...different."

George opened her eyes. She could tell that Xander, Willow, and Faith knew what Dawn was talking about, but the younger Slayers didn't. Oh, well, turnabout was fair play.

"Does this have something to do with you looking like a big fucking ball of glowing green light?" she asked.

Dawn groaned. "That's what I'm thinking," she said.

"Dawn's not a ball of green light," Bree said, squinting at her.

"It's not important right now," Xander said. "I don't think it'll be relevant."

"Except that Dawn seems to see what's really there instead of whatever illusion the rest of us see when we look at Reapers. Do you see George differently, too?" Willow asked.

"She looks like a normal, college-aged girl to me," Dawn said. "Not a crack-head or anything like that."

"Okay," Willow said. "Let's assume that it really is Wesley, and that he's a Reaper in the Supernatural Division."

"Which would make sense, since he was killed by supernatural means," Dawn said.

"We think he was," Giles said.

"The rest of them get killed while fighting a demon army, and Wesley dies in a car accident?" Dawn said. "On the same day? I don't think so."

"How are we going to convince him to help us?" Willow went on, ignoring the interruptions.

"He didn't even flinch when Dawn called him Wes," Faith said.

George tried to make herself as small as possible, hoping they weren't expecting her to help. Breaking rules for herself was one thing; she didn't want to out another Reaper.

"He's a Watcher," Giles said. "He'll want to help."

Faith snorted. "The Watcher's Council fired him, tried to bribe him, and then shot at him when he wouldn't help them against Angel. And then you wouldn't help him when he called about Fred." She sounded furious at the last sentence. "Why the fuck would he want to help?"

"Once a Watcher, always a Watcher," Giles said. "He won't want this Judith to take over the world anymore than we do."

"What do you think, George?" Xander said.

George sighed. "Whatever or whoever Theo was before he died, he's now a Reaper, and the head of his division. He'll follow the rules."

"You're not," Dawn pointed out.

"I'm a rebel," George said. "Ask anyone."  
"Will you help us convince him?" Xander asked. The tone of his voice told George that he knew how she would answer.

She shook her head. "I really can't do that," she said.

"Can you give us any pointers, at least?" Dawn asked.

George thought about that. "Well," she said. "I think saving the world from Judith is important. I bet he would, too."


	8. Chapter 8

Once George said she'd helped as much as she could, she left, presumably with Lauren trailing after her. Buffy and Giles hung up, as well, saying that the Seattle contingent obviously had everything well in hand. Dawn didn't move from her seat on the floor. She kept paging through her notes, hoping for something useful to jump out at her.

"How _are_ we going to convince him?" she asked, when Xander, who had been dealing with the phone, sank back against the sofa back with a sigh.

"I think we need to convince him that people he cares about are in danger," Faith said. "You wouldn't believe how far he went towards the end there, to save his friends. The plan he came up with to take down Angelus..." She put her hand up to her neck, where Dawn could see the marks of a vampire's bite. Apparently, even Slayer healing couldn't get rid of those scars. Buffy still had faint ones from when Angel had bitten her right before her graduation from high school.

"I remember," Willow said, putting her hand on Faith's arm. Faith jerked her hand away from her neck and leaned back against the sofa, trying to look nonchalant. "And he did say that he went to a very dark place, even though I never got the whole story there. Did you?"

Faith shook her head.

"We don't really know anyone he cares that much about anymore," Xander said. "Everyone's kind of dead. We need a plan."  
"Shouldn't we find him first?" Bree asked. "I mean, the Theo Brown him."

"Good point, Bree," Xander said. "Any ideas?"

"We could set a trap for him," Liz said. "We know he'll show up when someone dies from supernatural causes."  
Faith sat up at that. "You're saying we should let someone get killed. Fuck no."  
"Not let someone get killed," Liz said, "but if we knew..." She trailed off, finally thinking it through.

"And he wouldn't necessarily show up," Dawn said. "He said he has four or five Reapers in his division, right? So it might not work anyway."  
"We don't let people get killed," Faith said.

"Of course we don't," Xander said, nudging her shoulder with his. "We'll find another way."  
"I wonder if he has a car?" Willow said. "I could hack into the DMV - or oh! - he must have an apartment or house. I could -"

"Why don't we check the phonebook?" Bree said. "He might have a phone."

Willow stared at her, then laughed. "Sounds like a plan," she said.

There turned out to be fourteen Theodore or T. Browns in the Greater Seattle phonebook. Kristin and Jen took turns calling them, but only one had a British accent. Jen, who was from Tennessee, exaggerated her own accent and explained that she was looking for her uncle, but that this T. Brown obviously wasn't him. After she hung up, she looked at the phone.

"He may have pegged me," she said. "Unless he always sounds that dry."

"Well, he is British," Dawn said.

"Then we'd better get over there as soon as we can," Faith said. "Let's go."

"We still don't have a plan for convincing him to help us," Willow said.

"How about we all sit on him until he does?" Faith said, obviously exasperated.

"That would work for me," Xander said, grinning at all of them and earning several elbows to the ribs and punches to the arm.

"Faith," Willow said, but luckily the doorbell rang before she could go on. Dawn almost sprinted to answer the door; she hated when people she liked fought.

Oz stood on the doorstep.

Dawn hustled him inside and slammed the door shut.

"Is it safe for you to be here?" she asked as everyone else came pouring into the hall. "What if Judith has this place watched?"  
"She doesn't," Oz said. "I'm afraid I can't help you guys as much as I thought I could. She's not a very sharing person."

"You're not under mind control," Willow said. It was definitely a statement, not a question, but Oz raised his eyebrows at her.

"We had to check," Xander said.

Oz smiled a little, but shook his head. "I went to her voluntarily, so she didn't see the need. She thinks everyone should think the way that she does."

"I got that," Willow said.

"You can't tell us anything useful?" Faith asked.

Oz shook his head again. "What she told you was pretty much the truth. She's amazingly arrogant about her powers - she thinks you don't pose any threat at all."

"Not even Willow?" Xander asked, looking grim.

Oz shrugged. "She's got that magical shield, and she thinks it'll stand up to anything."

"I think so, too," Willow said. "What we need is to disrupt the source of her power so her shield drops - that power is not coming from inside her. We have an idea for that."

"Good," Oz said, relaxing just a little bit.

"But we need to convince Wesley to admit he's really him, so he can help us figure out the details. We're not sure just telling him what we know of Judith's plans will do that."

Oz blinked several times, then seemed to shrug off his questions.

"I can help with that," he said. "I'll convince him."

"Great," Xander said, then turned to Faith. "_Now_ we can go."

"_Thank_ you," she said, but she grinned at him as she said it.

Luckily, it was towards the end of rush hour, so the traffic wasn't that bad. It also occurred to Dawn on the way over that Wesley might have already left for his Reaping duties, but he opened the door almost as soon as Faith knocked on it, making her think Jen had been right, and he had been expecting them. He didn't invite them in, just stepped aside so they could all enter. They did rather fill the not-large living room of the apartment, and Wesley laughed as he looked around at all of them.

"Do sit down," he said. "I don't believe I have enough cups for all of you, but if some of you would like some tea...no? Ah." He sat down on a big leather armchair and regarded them all. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"C'mon, Wes," Faith said, dropping down into another armchair. "You know we know."

Willow giggled. "We know you know we know."

Wesley raised one eyebrow at her. "I'll tell you what you want to know if you tell me why Dawn looks like a pretty young woman one moment and a ball of glowing green energy the next. It's a very pretty green," he added after a few moments of silence.

Dawn sank down onto the arm of Faith's chair, crossing her arms over her chest. Once a Watcher, always a Watcher; Giles had been right. She should have known what his price would be.

"Dawnie?" Willow said. She and Xander had sat down on the leather loveseat that completed the little conversational grouping around a battered coffee table. The younger Slayers ranged themselves behind Dawn and Faith; Dawn appreciated the show of support, since she knew they didn't know what was going on.

"You tell it," Dawn said, knowing she was behaving badly and not caring. She was glad she hadn't sat down next to Willow or Xander; Faith wasn't someone who would reach out and pat her for comfort or anything like that.

Willow began the story of how Dawn had originally been pure energy, designed, or existing, to open the gates between all dimensions. How some monks had formed her out of the Slayer and sent her to Buffy. How the hell-god that Buffy had been supposed to protect her from had terrorized them for months, until they had managed to defeat her with the unfortunate side-effect of Buffy's death. Not that Dawn could claim any part of Glory's defeat; she'd been trussed up like the proverbial virgin sacrifice, not able to help either Spike or Buffy, not even able to prevent herself from being sacrificed. Hearing it all over again made Dawn want to squirm with embarrassment, but she forced herself to sit still. They had other - bigger - problems than her embarrassment.

"I never did hear the whole story," Wesley said when Willow had finished. "I remember when Angel went to see Buffy after she came back to life," and here, he looked amused for no reason that Dawn could see, "but we had other problems just then."

"We weren't advertising any of this, for obvious reasons," Willow said. "There are most likely other people out there who would like to use Dawn's power, so we don't want to let anyone know she has it."

"I understand, of course," Wesley said.

"So, Junior Watcher," Xander said. "We fulfilled our part of the bargain. Pay up."

"I'm a Reaper now," Wesley said. "Don't call me that." He sighed when Xander grinned at him. "What do you want to know?"

"When we visited Judith, she had a graveling in her study with her," Willow said.

"A graveling? How do you know - how do you know she has a graveling?"

"George was with us, and she told us," Willow said. "She said it looked sad, and like it wanted her to help it."  
"I can't picture a graveling looking sad," Wesley said.

"She was a bit freaked out by it," Willow said, "but here's the thing. Judith uses magic in a very unusual way - almost sideways from the way it's normally used. She also has extremely strong shields against both magical and mundane attacks. We think she may be tapping into the graveling's power somehow and using it to fuel her magic."

"Interesting theory," Wesley said. "What do you expect me to do about it?"  
"We expect you to help us," Xander said. "Judith wants to take over the world, and Willow thinks she can do it if we don't stop her. Is that what you want."  
Wesley shrugged and crossed one knee over the other. "It won't affect me, one way or the other. People will still die from supernatural causes, and that's my, well, it's my life now."  
"C'mon, Wes, you can't really mean that," Faith said.

Wesley studied her for a few moments. "I must, I'm afraid," he said.

"But it will affect you," Oz said. He was still standing over by the door, arms by his sides, like he'd never been more comfortable in his life.

"How so?" Wesley said.

"Judith wants to end death," Oz said. Dawn goggled at him, and she wasn't the only one.

"That's not possible," Wesley said.

Oz shrugged. "I didn't really take her seriously when she said it, but if she has somehow tapped into a graveling's power, I'm having to rethink. Can you really take the chance?"

Wesley didn't say anything for a few minutes, and everyone else was silent, allowing him his time to think.

"I will consult with my colleagues," Wesley said, standing up. "I will contact you as soon as I have made a decision."

Everyone else stood up and headed towards the door, Willow and Xander thanking Wesley as they passed him. Dawn didn't say anything. Every time someone else found out about her true origins, it made her feel a little more exposed. Faith punched Wesley's shoulder as she walked by him.

"Not liking the new look, Wes," she said. "But it's good to see you."

Wesley waited until she was almost out the door before he said, "You, too, Faith."

XOXOXOXOXOXOX

"What the fuck were you thinking?"

George crossed her arms over her chest, sank down onto her tailbone in the booth, and stared at Rube as he continued yelling at her. She didn't even bother defending herself. Rube needed to explode all over her before he could calm down and deal with this rationally. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mason moving his fingers like little villagers running from a volcano. She wanted to laugh, but instead made her face look sullen, which was more like what Rube expected. Besides, Wesley would be here soon, and he could explain. These were his type of people they were helping, anyway. Daisy walked up just then and slid into the booth beside her.

"Oo, what has Georgia done now?" she asked.

Rube obviously struggled with what to say to her. George suspected that he wanted to tell her to mind her own business, because that's what he usually said to Daisy in times like these, but he couldn't say that this time.

"We'll wait for Wesley," he said finally. "No point in going over it again and again."

Roxy seemed to appear out of nowhere and sat down next to Daisy. As usual, Daisy somehow managed to get most of the room in the booth, and George felt completely squished against the side. She didn't bother to complain.

"All of them?" Wesley said, also seeming to appear out of nowhere. This was really starting to annoy George. Why couldn't she do that? Wesley looked at Mason and Rube, then pulled a chair over, placed it at the end of the booth, and sat down. "Is that really necessary?" he added.

"Not at all," Roxy said, but Rube glared at her.

"Yes, it damn well is," he said. "I don't want this happening again."

Wesley looked amused. "I hardly think it's likely to happen again, but as you wish."

"Well?" Rube said. "Care to explain how you and one of my own Reapers have lost your minds?"  
Wesley's smile deepened. "Now, how can I answer that? Obviously I don't think we've lost our minds."

"What the fuck is going on?" Mason said. He'd been looking back and forth between Wesley and Rube like a tennis match.

"You were there when George's Reap went missing, correct?" Wesley asked him. At Mason's nod, he said, "The reason her Reap has been recalcitrant is because she's a Slayer, and they're notorious for not doing what they're supposed to do."

George had no idea what 'recalcitrant' meant, but she wasn't about to interrupt him when he was taking the burden of explaining everything off of her.

"I don't see Lauren, by the way," Wesley said.

"She's over there," George said, pointing to a booth off in a corner. "Rube didn't -"

"She doesn't need to be here for this," Rube said, glowering at both George and Wesley at the same time, and since they were on opposite sides of the table, that was pretty impressive. "Go on."

"Slayers fight the things that go bump in the night," Wesley said, and went on to explain everything George had learned in the past few days about the supernatural world. Daisy seemed to take it all in stride, though it was always hard to tell with her, and Roxy just looked bored. Mason, of course, had already known about werewolves and vampires being real, though he listened avidly as Wesley talked. When Wesley got to the part about Judith wanting to take over the world, George felt herself becoming as sullen as she had tried to look. It just sounded so stupid, no wonder Rube was annoyed.

"Take over the world?" Daisy said, staring at Wesley with her head on one side. "You mean she wants to be president? That would be neat, a female president."  
Wesley shook his head at her. "Much, much more than that. And we wouldn't like the world once she'd take it over; people who want to do that also want to make the world over into their image, and trust me, you don't want that."

"Not to mention that we'd all be out of a job," George said.

Everyone turned and stared at her.

"What does that mean?" Roxy said. "Even if some crazy-ass witch decides to take over the world, people will still die. She'd still need Reapers, even if she knew we exist. Which she doesn't."

"Don't be so certain of that," Wesley said, and everyone looked back at him, making George sag with relief. She told herself not to speak up again. "Judith has a graveling tied to her - apparently, it's the source of her power. And we have it on good authority that one of her plans, once she's taken over the world, is to end death."

"That's not possible," Rube said.

Wesley shrugged. "I wouldn't have thought it possible that she could imprison a graveling and use its power for her own," he said. "I don't think I want to count on anything being impossible where she is concerned. We need to operate on the assumption that she can do exactly what she says she wants to do. How do we stop her?"  
"That's not our job," Rube said. "Those people you knew when you were alive - it's their job. If you get a post-it for one of them while they're fighting this Judith, you'll fucking take the soul. That's your job."

Wesley sighed. "I know that, and I will, if it comes to that. But they can't figure out how to defeat Judith - and trust me, these are resourceful people. If they could do it, they would find a way. Judith's changed the game by using a graveling for the source of her power. My...my former friends can't even see it, let alone disrupt that connection. I think it's up to us."

Rube banged both fists on the table, making everyone jump. "We don't interfere in the lives of the living, and we don't interfere in their deaths. We're just there to take the souls. That's it, that's the natural order of things. End of story."

"But if she's going to end death, won't that interfere in the natural order of things?" Daisy asked. She actually looked serious for once. "I mean, having no one die would not be natural. The world is already overcrowded enough."

Rube looked around at all of them. "Do you all think we should help these people?"

George nodded immediately, and Daisy did a moment later. Mason and Roxy thought about it for a few moments, but then they both nodded, too.

"It isn't right, what she's trying to do," Roxy said. "I still can't believe it's possible, but if it is, who better to stop her than Grim Reapers?"  
"I won't be part of this; I can't be part of this," Rube said. "Excuse me, Mason."

Everyone was quiet as he left. Mason slid over to where Rube had been sitting, and Wesley slid into the booth after him.

"Does anyone have any ideas about how to stop her?" he asked.

"It has to start with the graveling," George said. "You can't imagine how fucking sad it looked, and I never thought I'd feel sorry for a fucking graveling."

"No, I fucking can't," Mason said.

"I don't understand how someone is using a graveling, creepy things," Roxy said. "But then, I've never really understood gravelings, anyway. Where do they come from?"

Wesley shook his head and shrugged, but George, Daisy, and Mason didn't say anything. Or look at each other. Wesley narrowed his eyes at them.

"You three know something, don't you?"

George tried to look innocent, and could see Daisy and Mason doing the same, but it wasn't working.

"I'm not Rube," Wesley said. "I don't care if it you bent the rules to find out something, especially when that something could be useful. Spill, you three."

"It's really Mason's story to tell," Daisy said, and George could have kissed her.

"Fuck that," Mason said, but under the combined glares of George and Daisy, he gave in. "Gravelings are the souls of people who died without a post-it."

Wesley leaned back against the booth, looking intrigued. "I'm not going to ask how you know that," he said.

"I am," Roxy said, glaring at Mason.

"Later," Wesley said. "All right, if gravelings are actually the souls of people, it explains how Judith imprisoned one."

"It does?" George said.

"There are many ways to trap a soul," Wesley said. "It's all the darkest of magics, of course, and I have no idea how she found out that gravelings are souls, but once she did, she could trap it fairly easily. And souls have a lot of power; I don't know how to use it myself, but I'm fairly certain Judith would have found resources out there to tell her how to do it."

"Good," George said. "So, Willow can use this info to take Judith out, Lauren will finally move on, and my life can go back to normal."

"I'm afraid it's not quite that simple," Wesley said. "Soul magic is extremely powerful. Extremely dangerous to the practitioner, especially to his or her own soul, but powerful enough that I think Willow could disrupt it. I do know that it generally entails tying the trapped soul, and the practitioner's soul together so tightly that it's impossible to separate them this side of death. And Willow said that Judith's magical and mundane shields are so powerful that she wouldn't be able to get through them."

"But where does that leave us?" George said. "You keep saying it's impossible."

Wesley nodded. "It does seem that way, but then it often does. I hate to suggest this, but does anyone know how to kill a graveling?"

"George does," Mason said.

George put her arms down on the table and her head down on her arms. Damn it, she was a Reaper, not a super-hero. But somehow, she the world kept making her do things she didn't want to do.


	9. Chapter 9

The next afternoon found George at Slayer Central, gearing up for a battle. A literal battle, not just a fight with her mom. They'd come up with a plan; well, mostly Xander and Willow had come up with a plan, once George had explained what she could do to the graveling. George knew the plan. She understood the plan, but that didn't mean she liked the plan. She wasn't even sure that she could follow through with the plan, even though everyone else was. She also wasn't sure that the best way to head into a battle was just to walk up to someone's door and ring the doorbell. She just didn't seem to have a choice.

All of the Slayers were choosing weapons and secreting them around their persons, amazing George with how many each one was taking. Dawn had selected a few weapons, as well, but the one she looked like she was planning on using the most was a crossbow; she had offered one to George, but George had turned it down. She didn't know how to use it, and like it or not, she was most likely going to have to get in close to the fighting, anyway. Xander also had a crossbow strapped to his back, as well as a wicked-looking axe he held in one hand. Wesley was even there; he was their back-up plan, in case George couldn't complete her mission. In the midst of all of this chaos, Willow was actually managing to meditate, but George tried not to look at her. She seemed to be floating several inches off the ground, but George wasn't about to get close enough to see for sure. Somehow, Willow came out of her trance just as everyone else was ready to go, and they all piled into the SUVs and headed out.

Judith's house looked the same as it had the last time they'd been there, and the butler answer the door just the same. He actually did raise his eyebrows at all of them - it was rather hard to conceal just how many weapons they were all carrying - but he admitted them into the house as though he hadn't noticed. He didn't take them to the library, however; instead, he led the way downstairs, where the whole basement was one large room.

One large room with Judith and all of her minions lined up for battle.

"I knew you'd come," Judith said, her voice carrying easily from where she stood behind several rows of not-quite-people with just as many weapons as the Slayers had.

Willow laughed. "We weren't exactly subtle about it," she said.

Judith drew breath to say something else, but Faith had evidently had enough talk. With hardly a sound, she launched herself at Judith's front line. The other Slayers followed her lead, and Xander, after a shrug at Willow, joined in. Dawn stayed back, aiming her cross-bow and firing, though she seemed to be doing almost as much grumbling as shooting. Wesley also stayed back, although he was on the opposite side of Willow as George; they'd planned that, in case Judith realized what George was trying to do, maybe she wouldn't think there was another Reaper there. George wasn't sure what Willow was doing, except that the air seemed to be glowing in front of her, but she was too busy to look closely, anyway. She used the confusion in the room to look for the graveling.

During the Reaper brainstorming session, they'd reasoned out that the graveling would have to be close to Judith, which was somewhere George did not want to go. But she couldn't see it anywhere in the room. Much as she didn't want to, she was going to have to get closer to Judith. Unfortunately, a whole battle was going on in between them.

She didn't want to, but she did it. She inched her way along the walls of the huge room, always trying to keep at least one Slayer in between her and the weird things that were fighting them. She supposed they were demons, but she didn't look too closely. They couldn't be werewolves, because it was day time; Faith had been very specific about that during the planning session. How the Slayers managed to keep track of her during the battle, she didn't know, but whenever she thought a demon was going to get to her, one of the Slayers managed to get in its way. One time a demon did crash into her, but after she'd shrieked and jumped out of her skin, she realized that it was already dead, and had been thrown there by a Slayer. Liz grinned at her as she passed, both swords dripping with things George would rather not think about.

She'd gotten three-quarters of the way along the long wall of the room, away from where Willow and Dawn were still standing, before she saw the graveling. It was close to Judith, who had the same glow in front of her that Willow had, plus an annoyed expression on her face.

"Give up already," she shouted to Willow, who laughed.

"Did you expect this to be easy?" she said.

They continued to trade both barbs and spells, but George tried to ignore them. She kept her eyes fixed on the graveling, who was staring back at her, still with that pleading look on its face. She didn't think it would be so glad to see her if it knew what she was planning to do with it, but she supposed that almost anything would be better than this. Judith wasn't paying any attention to it, luckily, or she would have followed its gaze to George. George still didn't know how Judith could even see the graveling, but she supposed she must be able to, or how could she have trapped it in the first place?

When George was just two feet away from the graveling and starting to feel like this crazy-ass plan might work, a demon suddenly appeared in front of her, slashing its claws down at her. She shrieked and ducked, but that made Judith turn towards her, her eyes widening. Two Slayers ran towards Judith, but were bounced back by the shield that surrounded her. Lauren tried, too, but though she got through the shield, she couldn't actually touch Judith, so it didn't do any good. Her scream of frustration rang out over even the battle noises. Judith raised her hand towards George, and George desperately tried to crawl the last couple of feet to the graveling. She knew that the demon would probably shred her to pieces before she got there, even if Judith didn't, and though she couldn't die again, she really didn't want to feel that much pain.

But somehow, Wesley was there, and so was the demon's head, bouncing off of George's arm. Willow launched an even harder attack at Judith, trying to disrupt her.

George reached the graveling.

"I'm sorry," she said, and reached out her hand to take its soul.

It felt just like when she'd taken the Ray-graveling's soul, like she'd dipped her hand into a dirty oil slick. This was not something she wanted to do every day. She wasn't quite sure, but she thought she heard the graveling thank her before it disappeared, though she'd never heard a graveling speak before, so maybe it was her imagination. She definitely didn't imagine the almost inhuman cry Judith gave as the graveling disappeared, causing her shield to blink out of existence, as well. Faith took two steps forward and beheaded her, but George thought she was already dead, or at least didn't have a soul anymore. She'd thought she'd felt Judith's soul pulled along when she'd taken the graveling's, and she looked around for it, but it wasn't anywhere in the room. It must be completely destroyed, like the Ray-graveling's was. She supposed that she should feel badly about what she'd done - Rube would think she should - but she didn't. What Judith had done was an abomination, and George couldn't let her get away with it.

The rest of the Slayers easily took care of the rest of the demons, who had kept fighting after Judith was gone, but didn't seem to be doing it very well. Some of them even tried to run away. Wesley reached a hand down to help George up, and even though it was covered in gore, she took it and stood, gazing around in shock.

It was over.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Yeah, it often seems that way," Dawn said, chasing down the last of her maple syrup with her last bite of pancake and grinning at George. "All that work, all that planning, and the battle takes five minutes. And then it's done."

"It was more than five minutes," George said, staring at her. She wasn't really sure of that, but it had to have been.

Dawn grinned at her. "Not much more."

After the battle, they'd all come to Der Waffle House, where Xander had actually paid the manager to keep the whole place to themselves. Someone had brought a CD player, and music was blasting, music George would never have listened to when she was alive, but for some reason, it fit her mood right then. All the same, she wasn't even the least bit tempted to joining the Slayers - including Faith - in dancing in the aisles between the booths and counter. Willow, Xander and Wesley were over in another booth, deep in conversation, and she and Dawn had collapsed into this one and ordered huge plates of pancakes from Kiffany. What Kiffany thought of all of this, especially the goo-splattered clothes all of the Slayers had on, George didn't know, but then, Kiffany had seen a lot of weird things in this place before. If nothing else, she saw Mason on a regular basis.

"Think this is something you'll want to do again?" Dawn asked. She took a gulp of the grapefruit juice she'd ordered, obviously giving George time to think about her answer.

George didn't need to. "Definitely not," she said. "I'm not cut out for heroics."

"You did great," Dawn said.

George shrugged. "I know I did okay," she said. "That's not the point. I'm a Reaper; that's my job, and I'm actually good at it. I think I should stick to that."

"I get that," Dawn said. "Well, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find everyone. I won't be here for very much longer, but do you want to catch a movie or something before I go? And we could email."

George stared at her, then felt a smile spread across her face. "That sounds fun," she said. She had no idea what movies were even out, but the thought of having a friend who knew what she was, so she wouldn't have to hide anything from her, sounded more than fun. Maybe she should ask Bree if she wanted to join them; she'd liked Bree a lot, too. She looked over at where the Slayers were dancing and realized that she had one more thing to do.

"Lauren," she called out over the music. Lauren, who had been dancing off to one side, so she could avoid the other Slayers, bopped over to them.

"That was fun," she said, still moving to the music.

"Uh, huh," George said. "I'm glad you had fun, but don't you have somewhere you're supposed to be?"

Realization dawned on Lauren's face. "Yeah," she said. "I do." She turned to the door leading out to the street, where bright lights were appearing. Amazingly, the lights formed into a battle, much like the one in Judith's basement. Lauren reached out, and a sword made of light appeared in her hand. A look of intense glee on her face, she sprinted towards the lights, joining in the battle as they, and she, floated upwards.

"Wow," Dawn said, making George look at her.

"You could see that?" she asked.

"Yeah," Dawn said. "That was amazing - is it always like that?"

"Well, it's different for each Reap," George said.

Dawn snorted. "And for a Slayer, it's a fight. Makes sense."

George sighed, feeling free for the first time in days. The threat to the world was over, her Reap was finally where she was supposed to be, her life could go back to normal. Or rather, her death, which was turning out not to be so bad.

The End


End file.
